Aviation Marketing Intelligence

Nothing makes one as smug as seeing news that you were right.

One of the benefits of aging is gaining that increased confidence of being able to smell trouble, point it out and know you’re right. When you make the right decisions, you get to avoid all the pain, headache and cost of those grander blunders you might have made in the past.

While mistakes cost us a lot, the key is surviving and learning from them. This is what makes the subject of Sentient facing liquidity problems so interesting. How could you be slow paying your vendors when you’ve already collected the money up front?

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Popularity: 19%

The problem with hype is that it can really get away from you. Salespeople often require lots of fantastic premises and a careful architecture of quasi logic and emotional zingers to keep the potential customers slack jawed and credulous. Dayjet (of all air taxi schemes) was actually the one that had the best hope of “working.” Nonetheless, Dayjet’s most recent big news has reminded us of one critical thing: True “Air Taxi” is a tough sell - not so much to future passengers, but the darn investors you need to fuel up the venture in the first place.

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Popularity: 62%

The funny thing about being a jet owner, is realizing, despite your best efforts, how little you actually know.

The NBAA recently offered a quick snippet of what winds may be blowing chez FAA. According to an NBAA spokesperson:

“The FAA can and may take enforcement action against an aircraft owner if a flight is conducted illegally,” the spokesman said, “and the FAA can and may take action against an aircraft management company that should be operating flights [even aircraft owner flights] under Part 135, but is not.”

What does this mean to the fractional owner? The jet owner? Historically you’d think “well… not much.” After all, you’ve never been ramp checked, and are not likely to cross paths with the POI your poor pilot calls as infrequently as possible.

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Popularity: 61%