The Future of Flying: What Elite Travelers Want (And How JET365 Delivers) | Ep 216 with Alessandro Figliano Founder of Jet 365

0:00Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Founder Story. Today, we have Alessandro Filiano, the CEO and founder of Jet365. and Alessandra I'm very interested to learn about the luxury aviation space how you're disrupting this whole industry and all the things I know you got some crazy partnerships coming up we were just talking you're at F1 I mean this is going to be jam-packed today but Jet365 is a global luxury aviation company based in the U.S. dedicated to transforming private air travel which a lot of the people I know are going to that versus the normal commercial. But Alessandro, what was the spark for entrepreneurship and why this industry?

0:44Yeah, I'll tell you, I've always been like an entrepreneurial spirit. I always had a passion for private aviation, never had the money to do it. My first company did pretty well, put myself through flying school and became like a fully licensed commercial pilot all in one year. I was I got introduced to it was a flying club and we would fly all around the world and I got a lot of experience and connections. And what happened was I had a lot of people asking me, Hey, can you fly me for, you know, for money for this and that? I said, guys, I don't have an AOC. I can't, uh, I can't just fly you for cash.

1:15So I started facilitating a lot of charter ops and sending business to a lot of other brokers, uh, brokerages till eventually I said, you know what, let's become the brokerage. Let's do this. And then that's how the business got started. So kind of just fell into it, but we've been off to the races. Let's go back to that in the beginning. So you get going, you create this, you know, the official company. And then how do you gain, you know, the first 100 customers? Oh, I mean, we don't even have 100 full-time flyers now. I mean, it's very smaller numbers than that. We deal with like very high net worth individuals and kind of provide a very personalized service.

1:50But I mean, we do have one off clients all the time come in. We're very strategic in our approach with providing a very high-touch, personalized service. And yeah, we just want to separate ourselves from the other competition. I know there's a lot out there, but our main three factors is safety, service, and flexibility. So we want to make sure that we provide a different service than the rest, and safety is our number one concern and service. Yeah. So what types of people do you find that are more attracted to this form of travel versus going to your normal commercial airlines? I mean, I think it's the entrepreneurs.

2:26It's the guys that value their time. I mean, time is money. It's important to get around efficiently. And, you know, these guys, they value their time. They want to be home with their families after the end of a long workday. And they probably have like multi-location businesses. So, I mean, it's really good to get around for them. And the service is needed. And we're finding it a lot with, you know, the Formula One team. As you know, we just announced that partnership. Very excited about that. And they came to us, right? They needed our service. So, we're excited to be working with them. and facilitating all their stuff as well and streamlining stuff.

2:57It's amazing in business how sometimes you have someone who is your customer or client who has a need and then you build something bigger on top of that. Can you tell us about that partnership? Yeah, well, the partnership, it came through a good friend, Oliver Oaks, and they reached out because they needed the service. They didn't have an aviation provider and they needed the service to just get around. The logistical challenges around F1 are insane. So they just needed someone they can trust and through the grapevine and they know about my service, they reached out and we were able to put a deal together and, you know, facilitate that stuff for them.

3:33Yeah. So a lot of people would think of this like, how the heck do you put all of this together? Right. Like you had some experience in the space, but not a huge amount when you started. Yeah. So I think a lot of people are like, they don't know how to get started. What was something that you did or something early on when you get into a new industry that allows you to get started and then start seeing success? Well, I think we noticed early on that it was heavily fragmented. There was a lot of disconnection and the way of booking a private jet was completely fragmented. So we wanted to streamline that.

4:07And with a new platform coming out, we're going to be able to do that. And that's with the new generation, we're seeing a notice switch, if you will, of the user experience where they just want it completely automated. They want to see the options they want to book. And then we have the old fashioned client, which we have a lot of them where they want everything, you know, handled through us and a very back, a lot of back and forth. And, you know, it's it's two different customers, but I saw a need for it. A lot of learning lessons, a lot of mistakes. But, you know, we're we're feeling very comfortable now and we're two years in and we've been off to the races and providing some really good stuff for our clients.

4:42So how do you look at this white glove service? I imagine, you know, the more the higher net worth individual or higher net worth clients that people have with whatever company, they're going to expect this type of white glove service. How do you ensure that it meets the standards of them? Well, we want to start off with the operators, the planes that we put them in. We want to make sure they're 100 percent safe, make sure they're Argus rated, you know, waiver and then they meet all the safety criteria. You know, we vet the operators ourselves. We know the pilots. We know the aircraft. So we know, you know, the crew that's going to be on board.

5:17That's a start right there. And then from our standpoint is just making sure we handle the client professionally and making sure, you know, everything's in order. And, you know, safety and security is our number one priority internally as well. So I think it's a it's a great value add. And it's now more than ever, you know, clients, they need an intermediary between the client and the operators because a lot of these bigger corporations are just another number. and you're spending a lot of money to travel in this fashion. So I think it's needed now more than ever for sure. I was recently flying, and I have to say the service was pretty terrible on the plane that I was flying on, and I was shocked.

5:57It just seemed like all the employees are stressed out. This is like a packed commercial airline, and I think this is a lot of experiences recently. I don't know if they care so much about their job anymore and providing that service. So how do you see the future of aviation? Do you see like Jet365 or similar companies or just that type of experience growing more because people are sick of like regular commercial and just how bad the experience has become? Yeah, I think there's more aircrafts available. There's definitely a transition. We're seeing an influx of new flyers all the time. It's definitely still a huge cost gap, but I mean I think it's going to get more competitive with the EV tools and the new advancements in the space and there will be a lot of new clients entering the market but I mean private's the way to go the overall time savings and the way of getting around is just it's not even the actual flight time it's essentially everything in between you don't have to show up an hour before I go through customs you don't have to wait for your baggage an hour after like it takes a full day to travel commercial as opposed to private show five minutes before getting the plane in your destination.

7:09You just hop in the car and go. So, yeah. I need that. I'm sick of getting there hours before. Like you said, I saw Newark Air Force just had that disaster with their systems. And it's really not the best experience from start to finish. So I used to use a service, and I was super happy when they had that service near me, and then I moved. but I'm curious so when it comes to marketing just in general whether it's Jet365 or other companies you had was there a marketing strategy that worked for you in terms of of getting brand recognition and getting the name out there yeah this is a good one I mean everyone is looking for that edge that you know that SEO that Google strategy I mean I'm just old-fashioned I've done everything referral based I mean when someone flies with me we have like a hundred percent retention rate.

8:03They tell their other friends and other clients and that's how our business has grown. Now we wanted to use F1 as like a global platform and just acquire clients all over the world by also getting our name out and our brand awareness and, you know, the credibility that we deserve. So I think it's been all in all win there. And, you know, we're excited to do this whole year with them and, you know, acquire clients, you know, through them, getting the word out more on a global scale. And yeah, I mean, there's no hidden formula, but we're trying to attack that from all angles, but we're also doing it in a sustainable way.

8:37We don't want to go for like a moonshot where we sacrifice on service. Cause I mean, I can open up Google ads and open the floodglates and have a million inquiries and get a whole bunch of clients that I can't handle, but I'd rather grow it more sustainably and have like a steady growth and just provide a very high touch service where it's needed for these guys. So yeah, that's where we're up. I'm glad you bring that up because I think sometimes we look at scale in terms of I want to go big or go home. Yeah. But many times it's at the expense of service employees. There's there's something you have to give up when you do that too soon or too quick or even just at all.

9:12Like maybe the business is never meant, you know, to have 10 ,000 customers. Maybe it's meant to have less who are paying more anyways. But I'm glad you bring that up. So I business for me has always been a roller coaster there's ups and then the next five minutes there's downs and then there's ups um what about you anything that happened in business whether it's now or before that was a significant challenge but you were able to overcome it well i mean uh i don't know if you saw the recent statements by alpine formula one team the team principal just resigned uh you know a couple days after we signed the agreement so i gotta see where that uh that makes us our standings between the F1 team and us.

9:54But I mean, there's all kinds of stuff. This industry is, you know, it's like flying a plane. You have to figure out a solution because you got to land, you know what I mean? When an issue comes up in the cockpit or, you know, a navigational thing, you have to work around that and still land the plane and have a successful mission. So it's the same thing in business and entrepreneurial, you know, as a whole, you know, doing business, you got to just find solutions and make it happen. So that really you're building the plane as you go in entrepreneurship, right? Yeah. No, I mean, I'm glad. And thank you for sharing that about the F1 and just your experience in general, because I think, you know, social media and people in business always putting everything is great.

10:35Everything is fun. But we know it's a lot of complexities in five minutes. Everything can change. But then five more minutes, everything changes back. It's always an amazing journey. did you ever have an experience where let's say you had to work with somebody maybe work for a company but that gave you some skills that you have moved into or maybe even some sort of formal education where you learned something there and those skills have moved into business i mean definitely handling the high net worth individuals from my first company it was focused around like high-end luxury market as well and i mean every every client's different but you got you kind of want to just put the client first and and really uh be client focused and i mean things are going to come up you just have to move around them um i'll tell you there was actually an aircraft that went down for maintenance and i mean we went out of pocket to get him another aircraft that's just uh you know standard the way we we do things you know we don't ever want to leave a client hanging and i think i learned that in my last business that the second you let someone down is the second you're done uh you can't say no in this business and you definitely want to just find ways to make things happen.

11:42So that's the things I've learned in my other businesses and I'm taking towards this one. And yeah, that's the fun part, right? Every day is like when you go to a job and you pretty much know your day, every day is the same thing. Every day could totally be different than the last day. You get that one phone call, changes everything. So are you finding then that when you're looking at doing business in a luxury market, like you said before, you can't say no to the customer, you really have to go above and beyond. Sometimes that means, you know, putting out money extra in order to solve a solution.

12:19Would you say these are some of the things or something else that you learn when you're looking specifically at targeting a luxury market? Yeah, I mean, 100%. These are things you all have to take into consideration. But I mean, there's a big change happening in our industry as opposed to, you know, the guys that want it in the old-fashioned way to the new generation that wants it completely automated. But I mean, we're dealing with that. Our platform is going to handle the new clientele coming in. We have the old-fashioned ways that are proven, and we've been operating under those standards. And then, yeah, every day you just take it as it comes, and it's an ongoing journey.

12:58But yeah, we're excited to be here. So when you look at generations, like you said, younger generation wants automation. Are you finding that younger generations are also more attracted to the customization versus, you know, the cookie, like a cookie cutter airline is like you buy a ticket. Like you said, you go two hours early, you go, there's that cookie cutter process. Are you finding that younger generations are more attracted to like your business model and then and then the more ability to customize things? A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, we're going to have all kinds of services, you know, added onto our platform as well.

13:36Like, I mean, catering, you know, car service, that's all going to be included. But we usually do that manually for our other type of clients. But I mean, yeah, people love customizations. We've had all kinds of crazy requests. I don't like to disclose my client's information. I know a lot of guys are going on Instagram and saying, hey, this client's asking for this. This client's on there recording the calls. if I did that I'd have like when you realize you need to hire it's usually already too late I've been there wasting weeks waiting for decent candidates if I had used indeed I could have hired way faster so when it comes to hiring indeed is all you need stop struggling to get your job post seen on other job sites indeed sponsored jobs help you stand out and hire fast with sponsored jobs your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster and it makes a huge difference according to indeed data sponsored jobs posted directly on indeed have 45 more applications than non-sponsored jobs one thing i love about indeed it makes hiring fast because it puts you right in front of the right people without wasting time plus there are no monthly subscriptions no long-term contracts you only pay for results and while i've been talking 23 hires were made on indeed worldwide there's no need to wait any longer.

14:50Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com slash founders story. Just go to indeed.com slash founders story right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash founders story. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. craziest stories ever but i don't want to say anything on air but yeah definitely every situation is different i've had the craziest requests from in the plane outside the plane do this do that and we make it work and make sure it's all legal and yeah that's it alisandra this has been great uh i can't wait to see you know what happens with jet 365 you said you're going to send me the hat so next time we talk i'm wearing the hat maybe even the t-shirt oh but i really really enjoy what you're doing i think it i i foresee it being the future of travel if someone can afford can afford to do it it makes total sense as to why they would and i can't wait to understand more about customization and the automation that you'll be you'll be as well so if people would again touch with you they want to find out more information they want to they want to book how can they do so yeah you can get us at jet365.io on our website you can reach out to me personally, af at jet365.io.

16:14And I mean, love to answer anyone's questions and talk more about the space. You know, we're aviation enthusiasts. We love what we do. And that's why we do it every day. And, you know, I'm just excited to work with people that, you know, need the service and love aircrafts as much as I do. And that's it, man, growing every day. And thank you so much for the time, Daniel. Really appreciate it. I'm not usually good on these like calls, but I hope I did all right and gave the audience what they're looking for. It was great to talk to you. Always like to hear, you know, amazing stories from people who are disrupting industries.

16:43Like I can tell that you're doing as well. And thank you so much for joining us today on Founder's Story. Thanks so much. We got a lot coming. Stay tuned. Thanks, Daniel, for the time.