PrivateFly Turns Ten
This month marks ten years since PrivateFly took off. It’s been a decade since we were a disruptive start-up, looking to convince the market that our vision of a tech-driven approach to private jet charter would succeed.
We’re still innovating, and we’re planning to keep it that way. We encourage our team to ‘Always Reach Higher’ and I hope we’ll never stop trying to make things ever more efficient for both our customers and our supply chain of aircraft operators. But many other things have changed over the past ten years.
Our size for one thing. We’ve gone from a two-person team (myself and my wife and co-founder Carol Cork), to a team of 40+ people now in 2018, with flight sales last year over £22 million – and significantly more this year. We’ve managed to consistently achieve 40%+ annual sales growth since launch and we’ve also created a sustainable and profitable business model – something that sets us apart from other new business concepts in our sector.
Our geographical reach has also changed. Initially we were focussed on the UK (which is one of Europe’s biggest markets). Then we expanded into other European countries, with France our second biggest market in Europe. It wasn’t originally our plan to expand into the US, but American customers were drawn to our recipe of technology and expert team, initially when they were travelling within Europe and then for their US and global travel.
Our US expansion has been one of our major milestones and challenges of the last decade. There are lots of differences on both the customer and supply chain side compared to Europe, but we are tackling them and learning fast – growing our Fort Lauderdale-based business organically and also through business combinations and partnerships. It was great to have our rapid international growth recognised last month, for the third year running, by the Sunday Times SME Export Track 100.
Another big challenge in the beginning was timing. We launched at the start of the recession which hit the private jet industry hard, as it did many others. But in fact the economic conditions proved to be just as much a catalyst as a barrier for us. Our proposition – offering a more transparent and cost-effective way to book on demand private jet charter – had strong appeal in a more cost-conscious climate.
Thankfully last year saw the whole industry move back into growth, for the first time since 2008. But there are now many new challenges – including a shifting competitor landscape, and complex trading conditions – including Brexit on the horizon.
The biggest challenge of all has been to find the right people, to sustain our growth. It’s not been easy but I am hugely proud of our excellent team, and of the distinctive family spirit and culture that we have created here at PrivateFly. Our strapline is ‘Your Flight. Our Passion’ and we know our customers, suppliers and partners recognise that they are dealing with people who love what they do, and who go the extra mile to deliver it (see how our team feel about working at PrivateFly in our recent video). Their passion and dedication has been absolutely central to our success to date.
So this is a big celebration for all of us, which we marked with a winter barbecue (at our snowy UK HQ) and a spectacular cake. We like to think differently, and we’re very excited to keep doing so, as we enter our second decade.
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