Avinode tailors memberships to meet operators varied needs

October 8, 2008
Charter

Avinode (Booth No. 3117), the business- to-business platform for online buying and selling of charter flights, was conceived barely a decade ago by three students as part of a joint thesis paper for the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenberg, Sweden. As a business venture, it was modified and launched in 2001 with European charter operators as its primary market. Today it is a global concern and “home” to more than 950 companies with a total inventory of some 2,700 charter airplanes.

At the show, Avinode is unveiling three membership types–standard, premium and enterprise. “We are expanding our product portfolio with solutions better tailored to match the specific needs of our clients,” said CEO Niklas Berg. “There are several different business models in the industry and the new lineup takes this into consideration.”

The membership types include:
• Standard membership provides general access to the marketplace.
• Premium offers additional search parameters, filters and visual representation of flights, empty legs and more detailed maps. Avinode describes it as ideal for brokers and larger operators with sub-chartered needs.
• Enterprise is an option for large operators and charter buyers who work with a defined set of operators and aircraft.

In the past year, Avinode has also expanded its services, including more advanced and more user-friendly software as well as new partnerships. Among the recent additions is TAP, a joint product offering with ARG/US that allows users to make ARG/US ratings a search parameter.

Avinode has also joined forces with flight operations systems software specialist CTA-FOS to streamline the booking process by sending Avinode trip requests and responses into an operator’s FOS account.

Also new is the implementation of marketplace one-way pricing. With any particular routing and pricing, Avinode can now accurately market an operator’s one-way availability, according to the company.

Members of Avinode also now have access to monthly statistical reports of marketplace activity, at company-specific and system-wide levels. It is a revamped feature of Avinode’s “Business Intelligence” component in which statistics provide information relating to charter requests, including which aircraft and airports are used. Later this year, Avinode will offer more advanced reports for Avinode Premium and Avinode Enterprise users.

Also, ARG/US CHEQPoint subscribers not currently members of Avinode now have six months of free broker access to source aircraft in the marketplace. In addition to full broker access of the system, subscribers will receive Avinode’s TAP interface. In marketing aircraft within Avinode, special pricing consideration will be given to CHEQPoint subscribers.

“Our purpose is simple,” said Berg. “It is to increase bookings and client base for aviation professionals within the charter industry…by providing the technology, tools and content to do so.”

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