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Unlocking the Skies:
Introducing Vaunt - Volato’s Answer to the Empty Leg Problem
by Tigre Pickett
In the ever-evolving realm of private aviation, Vaunt is determined to address a persistent issue of inefficiency and missed revenue opportunities: the empty leg. Vaunt is a sister company of Volato, a fractional aircraft owner-
ship and charter company.
Fractional owners, quarter-share investors (quarter-share
is a fractional owner — just the percentage is variable), and even private jet owners all encounter a dilemma upon ar- riving at their destination: either what to do with an aircraft sitting idle at that destination or how to manage the dead- head leg back to the home airport.
Private owners often face the choice of leaving their aircraft at the destination, incurring the expenses of their pilots and possibly other crew members while they conduct business or vacation. Alternatively, they might send their pilots home via commercial flights, only to have the crew travel back for the flight home. Only a few can afford the considerable expense of sending the aircraft back empty.
Floating fleet operators like NetJets or Volato grapple with a similar predicament. However, they lack the luxury of let- ting their aircraft sit idle at the destination, as every aircraft not in flight equates to lost revenue, and rarely is a customer ready to depart from the same location the plane landed, necessitating repositioning the aircraft with empty seats.
20 • TWIN & TURBINE / December 2023
Operators have tried various sys- tems to match passengers with empty legs and lessen the sunk cost of repo- sitioning flights, but these attempts have yet to generate a net gain.
As Volato fine-tuned its nascent fractional program with Honda- Jet’s Elite series, it encountered the age-old issue of paying for empty legs. Branded as a disruptor in the fractional jet business, Volato stra- tegically leveraged its technological expertise by establishing a sister company dedicated to addressing this problem — Vaunt.
Vaunt’s app is free to join, offers a yearly membership starting at $1,000, and requires no additional financial commitments for the year – for com- parison, a typical retail flight hour for a HondaJet is $5,000-$6,000.
After joining, you can add your name to a waitlist for empty-leg flights. Your priority on the waitlist depends on several factors: your tenure as a Vaunt member, your most recent Vaunt flight, any carbon offsets you’ve purchased, referrals to other members, and whether you’ve been a no-show on
previous occasions.
During this year’s NBAA-BACE event, I had the privilege
of speaking with Nicholas Cooper, Vaunt’s President and Co-Founder of Volato.
“We view Vaunt as an independent entity from Volato, but with shared interests in enhancing private jet travel access and sustainability,” Cooper revealed. “Vaunt was designed for those who aspire to experience private jet travel but lack the means.”
“In the era of influencers, we see an opportunity for people to enjoy the privileges of private jet travel and elevate their travel experience beyond traditional commercial f lights,” Cooper emphasized.
When asked about the absence of surcharges for actual flights, Cooper responded, “We want to provide our cus- tomers with a seamless experience after joining Vaunt. We don’t want them to have to deal with that decision of making an incremental additional payment. By being a Vaunt customer, they’re already onboard — the next step is finding their f light.”