Founded in late 2015 and operational in March of 2016, Chartwind is a fully automated private booking system for charter travel. It is free and simple to use for the customer and the charter company.
We wanted to develop a system that made very little impact on the day to day business for charter companies. So we designed the website and made it free to join, no annual fees and we do not charge the charter company a commission if they are selected by our customer. The charter companies receive an email that there is a request for a quote. They just see the origin and the destination of the flight requested. The dispatcher can then decide if they want to quote the flight. They go to the Chartwind site and log into their account and quote the flight with time, aircraft type and price. The charter company receives the entire amount of their quote and if the customer chooses them, we automatically trade contact information between the customer and the charter and it is their responsibility to complete the transaction.
At Chartwind, we have forwarded a qualified, ready-to-fly customer to the charter company who is conscious of the price and knows aircraft quality. All that is left to arrange is the payment method and fly.
For our customers, there is no membership fee to join, no cost to request a flight and an abundance of search price options. If they do select one of the charter company members, we collect $200 and then, like with the charter companies, we automatically trade contact information. Chartwind is out of the relationship between customer and charter company. There are no hidden fees. We are going to raise prices in 2017 but will grandfather in all 2016 customers at the 2016 rate.
What I find attractive is that a customer can search for flights anomalously and privately until they decide to commit. They see options, savings, and can decide without having someone push them for a decision. More choices and there are big differences in quotes because we do not know if a plane is sitting for the day and can make another flight, or an empty leg is available or a charter company will possibly charge less because the aircraft is not booked that day.
Flying private charter is, of course, still expensive but we see a wide range of prices on requested flights. So it is private, you see the best price and the aircraft and if you end up with a long term relationship with that charter, we are OK with that. Both sides of the transaction win. Click Click Fly.
