Charter & Fractional
Survey: Charter Operators Are Sales Slackers
At a time when they can ill afford to miss out on any available business, charter operators are doing a poor job of responding to flight requests, accordin

At a time when they can ill afford to miss out on any available business, charter operators are doing a poor job of responding to flight requests, according to a confidential survey conducted by UK-based operator Hangar 8. CEO Dustin Dryden anonymously made 40 flight requests covering four routes to 25 operators (including his own) and was disappointed to discover that he got a response from just over half of these and that only three quotations were effectively chased.

According to Dryden, the worst operators were those receiving requests via the Avinode online portal or from calls made outside normal office hours. “Avinode has been delivering as many as 90,000 inquiries per month over the past 12 months, but our conversion rate is bad,” he said. “This suggests a major lack of process in our sales and marketing departments.