Story ID: 
Jaunt Launch Aims To Unseat Charter Brokers
By: Matt Thurber
Caption: The new service from the founder of SkyAngels is designed to connect charter clients and operators.
Word Count: 506
Steffany Kisling, founder and CEO of flight attendant training and staffing agency SkyAngels, is taking the next step into serving business aviation clients with a new enterprise called Jaunt. The idea behind Jaunt is to create a direct-booking system that charter users can access without the typical intervention of brokers. What makes Jaunt different, she said, is that clients can not only search for charter flights as easily as using a Web-based consolidator such as Kayak for airline flights, but they can also provide feedback for other clients to consider before making their charter purchase decision.

“We’ve been working on it for over a year,” Kisling told AIN. “It’s a byproduct of what we’re doing with SkyAngels. [In the charter market] buyers are paying so much, but the service is falling short of expectations.”

Jaunt bypasses charter brokers by signing up qualified charter providers that want to work with Kisling’s company. A charter client will use Jaunt’s mobile app or website to put in a trip request that lists any special requirements such as aircraft type, ground transport and catering. Kisling said that Jaunt will vet clients to make sure they are qualified. Once the client submits the request, Jaunt will pass it to charter operators, which in turn can respond directly to the client. If multiple operators respond to a client, that client will receive multiple quotes to choose from. Clients can also search Jaunt’s flight inventory and view ratings of operators. There is no membership fee.

“We’re a marketplace or platform,” Kisling explained. “We don’t facilitate or coordinate the flight.” In addition to connecting the charter client and operator and providing a feedback mechanism, Jaunt also handles payment processing and reporting. Kisling believes that charter customers will save money by working directly with the charter operator rather than going through a broker.

Kisling admits that charter brokers, which are responsible for the majority of charter bookings, “are not going to like us. We’re building a product for the end-user. It’s kind of inevitable that there will be less of a place for brokers in the marketplace.”

The advantage of Jaunt, she added, is that for charter operators, their aircraft could fly more. She believes that other charter booking apps focus too much on selling cheap travel, for example, empty legs. Jaunt charter operators won’t have to discount their flights to cover charter broker commissions. “Now prices have to be considerably higher to account for broker commissions,” she said. “Or the price is discounted so much that the operator doesn’t want to accept the flight. It’s going to benefit operators that have a nice product. It’s allowing more transparency in the market.”

Jaunt has opened the doors to operators for beta testing and will launch for charter clients next month, according to Kisling. Initially access will be via the website, but eventually through Android and iOS apps.