Flight management app Hangban Guanjia, or “flight steward” in English, and leading business aviation company Deer Jet announced on Monday that they will jointly build the largest corporate aviation travel platform in Asia. The partnership hopes to make corporate charter jets accessible for people other than the very privileged by introducing “jet-pooling”.
“Integrating corporate jets with the internet will encourage more people to use corporate jet services,” said Yi Bing, COO of Hangban Guanjia. “Our travelers can expect to book various corporate jet flight tickets on our app later in April.”
A product of the science and technology company Huolitianhui, who recently landed RMB 933 million (USD 143 million) in Series C financing, the app now has four million users and is expected to achieve annual revenues exceeding RMB 50 billion in 2016. By having China Civil Aviation and HNA Group as its two largest institutional shareholders, the flight-booking platform has a great edge in integrating information on flight products and services.
Deer Jet, a subsidiary of HNA Group, is the largest business jet company in Asia with an accumulated fleet of 83 aircraft and provides more than 700 flights to over 170 countries each year, capturing 70% of China’s corporate aviation market. The cooperation with Hangban Guanjia is a further step on Deer Jet’s part after launching the app “Deer Jet Travel” in January to break the traditional mode of jet chartering that is generally considered to be inaccessible to the public.
According to the 2015 China Business Jet Fleet Report, mainland China had a total of 252 business jets in Q1 2015, achieving a YoY growth of 11%.
With “jet-pooling” services offering a better experience with more accessible prices, the potential for the corporate aviation market is just beginning to be tapped in China.
(Top photo from Xinhuanet.com)