Alan Walsh, President of Sentient Jet, says travelers are flying bigger and longer, valuing experiential travel and enjoying the holiday experience. He speaks with Romaine Bostick and Katie Greifeld on "The Close."

Massachusetts

Sentient Jet president Alan Walsh detailed how private jet travel mirrors the seasonal surges seen in commercial aviation, particularly around the December holidays. He explained that the company's jet card model, introduced in 1999, allows customers to pre-purchase flight hours with flexibility and guaranteed rates, catering to both advance planners and last-minute travelers.

Walsh noted a shift in traveler behavior post-pandemic, with more emphasis on experiential trips and group travel. Traditional routes remain popular, but there is a growing trend toward international destinations like the Caribbean, facilitated by private aviation's access to smaller airports and flexible scheduling.

Sentient Jet President Alan Walsh on the rise of private jet aviation

We know that around the holidays you see commercial air travel pick up in a big way. Does it then follow that you see a similar trend when it comes to the private jet landscape as well. It does. Katie great to meet you. Thanks for having me on to have all yourself and remain. It absolutely does. You know from a sentence that you mentioned. Yes we've been in operation for 25 years. We have 6800 card owners and yes they like to travel. It's no different from the commercial from the commercial world business. It is a peak season. December is that big travel between the Christmas and the New Year time frame. This season will be no different. And talk to us a little bit about how your business works here. I know that you introduced of course a new industry segment with this idea of a jet card. Walk us through how that actually works. So you know it is something that we invented as mentioned back in 1999. And really you know the cost of private aviation can be expensive when in your jet overnish ownership or if you're in a fractional world. However the jet card gives you flexibility where it's it's asset light or you can basically pre-purchase hours that then you can use at your discretion. We sell those in 25 50 hour increments. But the hours don't expire and the rates are guaranteed and they're available anytime that you want. That's the beauty. You know is is the fact that you have them. They don't expire. So you know it gives people a lot of flexibility on a year over year basis. I am curious Alan just about kind of the behavior of your passengers. Are they booking last minute for trips or are they the kind of people that are these the types of trips that they're taking that could be done months in advance. What does it look like. It's a bit of a boat room and to be perfectly honest. Thanks for asking. We do see more and more I think coming out of Covid. We saw an explosion in travel. I mean that is somewhat abated. But I think what it has done is given people a different mindset when it comes to travel now where it's become more on the experiential side as a business you know and not just a business set of necessity as to what some of the things were before. But on the experiential side people do pre-plan. And when you look at something like December now. Yes. You know people take the same trips to the same places to be with family every year and they will pre-book months out. But at the same time we're always going to have the last minute travel of course. But typically you're going to see for a season of travel like this. It's many many weeks. So what type of destinations are you seeing people go to. Anything that's kind of relatively new maybe that we've seen this year relative to past. Yeah. So the traditional routes are really northeast to southeast. You know not shocking when you come from the cold northeast and you want to go to the warmer southeast during seasonal travel and also escape into the mountains and through Rockies into Colorado for ski season. One of the trends that we are seeing to remain is people flying bigger and longer. So you know what does that mean. It really means the experiential travel aspect of it where people want to travel with friends and family and more. And that really comes into the end in the end to end experience of a holiday and really really spending time. That's probably the big trend that we're seeing. That's really interesting because my perception has always been that you know people fly privately basically domestically within the country that when it comes to those international trips that's something that you might actually book a commercial flight for. But listening to you Alan it kind of sounds like that trend is shifting a bit here. It really is. Yeah. I mean if you look at places like the islands and the Caribbean more and more to becoming more popular. And the reason for that Katie is access. You know you mentioned about the commercial and some of the challenges with the volume that we will see over the holiday period. But you know when you are flying private you do have the flexibility to fly into smaller locations shorter runways greater flexibility. And it's become very very attractive and accessible to people. So again it's a pickup. You know we'd certainly see that type of travel really really exponentially grow over the next couple of weeks.

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