New Tech Company Plans to Revolutionize the European Private Jet Sector

PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA, FEBRUARY 10, 2016 – In the second half of this year, the US-based tech company Stellar Labs, Inc (“Stellar”) is planning to revolutionize the private jet market in Europe by dramatically increasing the number of people flying privately and adding millions of Euros a year to the charter market. Stellar will do this by making it easier than ever before to charter a jet, and by providing a range of next-generation tools to operators who own or manage business aircraft to help them maximize the efficiency of how their jets are used and the revenue they generate.

Paul Touw, CEO of Stellar said: “The European and wider global private jet market is heavily paper based, very manual and laborious and its charter quoting process is error prone. It is a relic, inefficient and friction-filled market.”

“Our aim is to drag the sector in to the digital age by creating new technology to manage an operators core commercial requirements and by making it simple and easy for travelers to find and book a charter flight. We believe that if you make life better for both buyer and seller, the marketplace will thrive.”

Stellar officially launched in the United States last year and within three months 27 private jet operators who between them represent around 20% of the charter fleet in the US (over 500 aircraft) had signed up. Six of them also decided to invest in Stellar and become shareholders.

The attractiveness of the European private jet market

Stellar is particularly attracted to the European private jet market because its research reveals it has 4,297 business aircraft and it had around 1.66 million business flights in 2015 alone.

The company estimates that the European private jet charter market is worth around €2.39 billion a year, but around 35% of private jet flights in the region – some 596,400 a year – are empty. If operators were able to reduce that percentage through increased demand, better fleet optimization and airline-style revenue management, Stellar believes they could generate millions of Euros in extra revenue per annum.

How Stellar works

Those looking to charter an aircraft can search, filter, book and pay for flights in minutes via a computer, iPhone app or over the phone. For private jet operators, Stellar not only provides operators with access to potential charter customers, it also leverages their existing infrastructure, fully automates quoting, and streamlines the proposal and booking process. The entire experience is paperless from end-to-end. This is combined with real-time revenue management, powerful optimization, and cloud-based dynamic scheduling to create the most advanced commercial operations system ever created for charter operations.

Stellar is looking to replicate Airbnb, and the digital marketplaces that transformed the airlines industry. Between 2000 and 2005, despite the aviation industry facing up to huge challenges in the dot com bust and recession; 9/11; the emergence of the internet and video conferencing; and fuel prices rising fourfold, travel start-ups like Travelocity, Expedia and Priceline helped the airline industry grow revenue from $24.38 billion to $67.41 billion, and passenger numbers from 82.49 million to 152.55 million.

The company, which has over 40 technology professionals including four with PhDs, believes it’s the biggest team of IT specialists ever assembled focusing entirely on the private jet market.

For further information:

Richard Thomas, VP Marketing, Stellar Labs:
richard@stellar.aero
+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.