Sweden-headquartered business aviation technology company Avinode is launching a technology breakthrough that promises to significantly increase the conversion rate from charter enquiry to confirmed booking. Takeoff Ready is a new fast lane feature that gives priority in search results to crew-ready flights available to depart within 96 hours.

The new feature tackles one of the greatest inefficiencies in the charter sales process by differentiating between aircraft whose availability may be conditional upon factors such as the owner's approval, and those which may be booked immediately and with confidence.

Founder and EVP Per Marthinsson says: “It is technology that drives change in our industry, and Takeoff Ready is a major leap forward as we move closer to one-step booking. Takeoff Ready addresses three of the main problems with charter booking; owners not effectively communicating when their aircraft is not in use; pilot shortages; and the aircraft not being fully functional. Takeoff Ready is only for flights that are available with a crew on stand-by.

“40 per cent of all trips searched for in Avinode are for departures within 96 hours; that's up to 8,000 last-minute trip searches. Takeoff Ready encourages and allows operators to really stand out in response to that demand and gives brokers the assurances they need to deliver solutions to their clients. This is the closest to guaranteed availability that has ever been offered in the industry. We are maximising the marketing of aircraft by capturing a new layer of data that currently tends to sit in the heads of charter sales and dispatchers. This data will show up in every last-minute search on Avinode and will speed up the quote process, improving price accuracy and transforming the way that trips within 96 hours are sourced, confirmed and ultimately booked.”

600,000 requests go through Avinode every month and operators respond to more than 20,000 requests per day, but last-minute trip requests often fail due to a lack of confirmed availability. Takeoff Ready will create a fast lane for this data, decreasing the time that aircraft spend in the hangar, increasing their hours in flight and allowing operators to sell the capacity they want to sell.

Marthinsson continues: “With Takeoff Ready, we are taking the idea of verified empty legs and going one step further. Avinode is driving digital revolution in business aviation, incorporating features that are already commonly available in other industries such as retail and travel, and showing how they can also work for us. This is a huge step in revolutionising the way air charter is sold today.”

Nathan Batty, director of charter operations at JetSelect and one of the Takeoff Ready beta testers, says: “We're very excited by the possibilities this function opens up to us, both on the buying and selling side of our business. It's something we're already trying to do within the wholesale community, so having a streamlined, universal process on a platform we use on a daily basis is going to save us all time. Takeoff Ready will enable us to be more effective in our operations and increase bookings.”