Press Release

Issued by Stratajet.

April 11, 2017

The application of technology to private aviation has been successful in increasing the number of younger people and women using private jets in Europe. While private aviation is typically the reserve of male business executives, the introduction of booking platform Stratajet has opened up the market to an increasingly tech-savvy and younger private flier.

The Stratajet booking platform, which provides instant access to an international fleet of aircraft at customers' fingertips, has provided a solution to a stagnant market which was unable to attract younger fliers. Increased ease of access and lower costs are prompting a surge in millenials being attracted to the perks of private jet travel.

Among Stratajet's customers, the most active segment is the 25-34 age group, which conducts almost a third of all searches (32%), while over two thirds (69%) of searches are performed by customers aged 44 or younger, significantly bucking the industry average of passengers being over 40 years of age.

Stratajet uses sophisticated technology to guarantee the fastest way of booking a private jet at the best price. Its search engine is capable of returning accurate costs of a huge range of aircraft in seconds, all of which can be booked instantly, giving customers access to private jets at the click of a button.

This is a far cry from the traditional means of booking a private jet, by phoning a broker, which promotes inefficiency and wastage across the industry. Problems stem from the complexity of calculating the cost of a private jet flight, due to the innumerable variables that must be considered, and the industry's inability to streamline this process.

Stratajet's data also shows an increasing trend towards EU users browsing on the go. While usage of the Stratajet booking service continues to grow rapidly across all platforms, mobile searches for flights have grown at more than twice the rate of desktop usage. As a percentage of all searches, those performed on smartphones has grown by almost a third, to the extent that half (49%) of users are now searching for flights on mobile devices, whereas those conducted on desktop has dropped by 8% (from 59% to 51%). Searches on tablet devices has also seen a small decrease (13% to 12%), in line with wider industry e-retail sales figures which show a decrease in tablet usage v smartphones.

What's more, Stratajet is lifting the stigma of private jets being used by men, with the number of women searching for aircraft doubling since 2016. Indeed, women represent a faster growing segment for flight searching, with the number of searches by female customers increasing by over 50% more than men.

Jonny Nicol, founder and CEO of Stratajet, commented: “As consumers become increasingly time-poor, they require instant access to a range of services and private jet travel should be no different. So it is encouraging that this data demonstrates a much-needed shift in the mentality of the private aviation industry. The adoption of technology, especially via smartphone devices, will continue to lift the industry's barriers of inaccessibility, in turn increasing the scope for more and more people to find that private jet travel is well within their means. As this happens we fully expect smartphones to become the go-to means for consumers to access private aviation, further changing the way people travel.”