The system greatly reduces and, in some cases, eliminates manual calculations, rewriting, and human error.
A Czech start-up company called strafos is coming up with an innovative solution for digitizing the private jet industry. It is more of a modern BizAv platform that will change the functioning of the private jet industry, thus making this innovative platform, our Innovation of the week.
Digitizing the private jet industry
The solution is essentially a next-generation cloud software for charter sales and aviation management that will help private jet operators quickly process all inquiries, calculate flight offers, and look for optimizations of the private jets themselves as well as entire fleets. The project has a strong ecological ethos that aims for the gradual elimination of empty flights and maximum utilization of all planned routes of private aircraft.
Chief Business Officer Martin Pultzner said, “There is a clear advantage with strafos in the overall automation of calculations, from the demand itself to the full occupancy of flights. The current planning of private flights is a lot of manual work which includes multiple steps of human verification. The system we’ve developed greatly reduces and, in some cases, eliminates manual calculations, rewriting, and human error. It is a win-win solution because, especially from a B2B point of view, the optimization takes empty flights into account so costs can be reduced and flights can be occupied at the same time.”
How does the software work?
The system accurately evaluates all aspects of the calculation in real-time and displays detailed information about the costs and profits of each request for a private flight, thanks to advanced algorithms.
Each new flight request that operators create or receive from Avinode strafos automatically shows the availability of all aircraft fleets and instant prices for all aircraft. Strafos shows operators how a new request fits their schedule of all aircraft and automatically creates necessary legs and a new schedule based on the position of the aircraft all the while removing unnecessary legs.
History & Investors
With a passion for aircraft, the Czech startup strafos started with an ambitious project to revolutionize the private jet industry. strafos was created in 2021 in the Czech Republic. The unique team consists of aviation professionals, business managers, investors, and jet aircraft enthusiasts. We are helping private jet operators to increase their profits, optimize their flight schedule, respond with ease and much faster to flight requests, and decrease the overall number of empty legs. This online tool helps private jet operators quickly process all inquiries, calculate flight offers and look for optimizations, both for individual planes and entire fleets. This is a B2B platform that finally meets the expectations and needs of charter operators and sales brokers.
Investments
The prototype of this startup was created through the ESA BIC Prague incubator, through which strafos secured several contacts from the business sphere. strafos is trusted by investors who have already committed several million Czech crowns into the company. The company is also supported by the Lighthouse Ventures capital fund and angel investor Radek Ondracek.
The revamp, restart, and expansion
After an unsuccessful take-off in 2021, the highly motivated team decided to revamp and restart.
Now the current team of Marek Wagner, Jan Sýkora, and Martin Pultzner have significant goals in their sights. “We already made one attempt at launch and implementation. Due to an internal failure, we had to re-evaluate the market and narrow down the original scope of the product. We focused on improving the existing product to meet all requirements and we’re happy to say that now it’s truly ready for launch. In the process of all this, we managed to gain several potential clients from various parts of the world, and we’re now at a turning point when we are going to officially launch strafos into the world.” says Chief Operations Officer Jan Sykora.
Since its restart in mid-2021 strafos development has been carried out through the development company INVENTI, and in March 2022 the first ready-made version of the software was launched. It was immediately used in pilot operation by the first operators of private jets, and meanwhile, the team continues to improve the product and introduce other new features.
Chief Executive Officer Marek Wagner said, “We were able to learn from the initial development of the strafos system, and because of this, we developed a better and more reliable system to launch on the market. We’re currently targeting operators of private flights, and in the future, we will expand our product to other systems that are an integral part of the entire private flight sales ecosystem.”
Goals and Plans
Strafos has stratospheric goals and plans. The biggest is to make private flying accessible to the general public.
Marek Wagner says, “Because of the crises the world is facing, the market is dynamically changing. At one moment the business aviation market is growing, and then suddenly another restriction significantly limits it. Planning long-term goals is complicated, which is why our price calculations and real-time economic data are an invaluable tool for every private jet operator.”
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More customers using private flights bring more critical data and insights, which will provide better analytics and faster decision-making opportunities for operators. In addition, reducing the number of empty flights is also a big goal and aligns with the ecological ideologies of strafos. The upcoming months will be a turning point for strafos, who are already warming up their engines and preparing for launch. It might seem that the problems in the aviation industry associated with the coronavirus pandemic played against the launch of strafos, but the opposite is true.
