5.23.16

Stellar Labs to Meet Top European Operators at EBACE

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, MAY 23, 2016 – Silicon Valley based tech company Stellar Labs is revolutionizing the private jet market by providing the first complete digital marketplace, which will increase the number of people using private aviation, and bring huge efficiencies and improved margins for private jet operators. The company is meeting with 15 of Europe’s top 20 operators in preparation for its European launch in the first quarter of 2017.

Beyond providing operators with a digital global distribution system to access potential charter customers, Stellar has developed the most advanced commercial operations system ever created for business jet operators. The system fully automates quoting, streamlines the proposal/booking process, and securely moves funds through their electronic payments network.

Furthermore, it gives operators sophisticated new capabilities not currently available to business jet operators including: real-time revenue management, powerful optimization, dynamic scheduling, and advanced analytics. The entire experience is paperless from end-to-end.

“Business aviation operates like a pre-internet industry,” said Paul Touw, CEO of Stellar Labs. “Operators typically have to make 20 proposals for each booked charter trip and each booked trip can require hundreds of emails to complete. Much of the data is input and stored manually, increasing the chances of making mistakes but also adding to the overall cost. Mr. Touw continued: “In addition, up to 35% of private aviation flights have no one on them, but with our technology this could be potentially reduced to 15% using our floating fleet optimization. We estimate that these levels of inefficiency means that the actual cost of a flight only accounts for around 60% of the purchase price and this is restricting growth in the industry.”

New research (1) from the company shows that growth in the global business aviation markets is slowing. Between the periods 2006-2010 and 2011-2015, the number of business aircraft delivered globally fell by 23%. To help address this, it says the sector needs to move online and is building the first all-digital commercial management system and marketplace for business jet operators to maximize operator profits and increase the number of people using private aviation.

Stellar estimates that consumers spend over $60 billion a year on business aviation, with around $34 billion of this in the United States, but there is huge potential for growth. ”We want to have the same impact on the private aviation sector that the likes of Sabre, Priceline, Uber, Airbnb and others had on transportation and hospitality,” said Mr. Touw. Between 2000 and 2005, despite the commercial aviation industry facing significant headwinds from fuel prices quadrupling, the dot.com recession, and the TSA; online travel marketplaces such as Travelocity, Expedia and Priceline helped the airline industry grow passenger revenue miles from 24.38 billion to 67.41 billion, nearly 3x in five years, the fastest the industry had ever grown. Other travel marketplaces such as Uber for ground transportation, and AirBnB in hospitability had similar impacts on their core industries by growing the demand for their industries by threefold in five years. Stellar Labs launched in the United States in the summer of 2015, and in a short period thereafter had over 700 aircraft implemented in its systems.

Notes to editors:
(1) Stellar Labs analysis of JetNet data, April 2016
(2) Stellar Labs analysis of WING X data

For further information:
Richard Thomas, VP Marketing, Stellar Labs
richard@stellar.aero
+44 790 495 0841 / +1 (415) 997-9961

About Stellar Labs
Stellar is the first complete digital marketplace for private aviation. Designed by four PhDs, a team of over 30 developers, and a veteran leadership team from Silicon Valley, Stellar brings together the most advanced technologies and data science to streamline private aviation for travelers and operators. Stellar’s proprietary operator technology integrates with the first all-digital distribution network making thousands of flights instantly available to anyone.