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Below is our recent interview with Anton Lutz, Chief Executive Officer at flyv:
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to your company?
A: flyv is an on-demand start-up airline from Germany, providing affordable, fast and environmetally friendly decentral connections in markets unable to be served with existing business models. The core product of flyv are connections: Let’s assume you want to travel from A to B. We do not sell you A to B via C, but you can choose from one of the following products:
flyv Direct: a guaranteed non-stop flight with the shortest possible time frame, let’s say 7am to 9 or 5pm to 7pm, 500 €
flyv Quick: at max one stop with the second shortest time frame, let’s say 7am to 10am or 5pm to 8pm, 250 €
fly Classic: possible several stops with a competitive time frame relative to the distance, let’s say 6am to 10am or 4pm to 8pm, 180 €
flyv Saver: possible several stops with a long time frame, let’s say 6am to 4pm, 120 €
You choose one of the products for the day you want to travel and pay the ticket price. In return, you get a guarantee that on the travel date you will be transported for the booked conditions.
Three days before departure, we will inform you about the exact journey details. For example: “Dear customer, we are happy to pick you up in three days at 7:25am in A, after a stop from 8:15am to 8:35am in D, we will drop you in B at 9:45am
For our model, we use two core algorithms: A) the fulfillment algorithm, which is doing the “matching” process three days before departure and matching all of the demand including the booking conditions with our resources as well as B) the product algorithm, which optimizes when you enter a booking request which products are offered with which time frame frames for which price.
Q: Any highlights on your recent announcement?
A: We believe that current technologies are not the right fit for this business model and therefore need new technologies. We see in Electra the perfect match for our business model to scale up, wherefore we have ordered up to 100 of their aircraft.
Q: Can you give us more insights into your offering?
A: With our product, we do not want to address major markets like Berlin to London or Paris to Rome. Here, incumbent airlines offer with a fixed schedule a much better product. With our product, we want to address all decentral markets, where demand is thin and highly volatile, offering with our time frame a significantly faster transport than any alternative. For example from Limoges (France) to Modena (Italy). Train: ~20 hours, Car: ~10 hours, Plane (via Paris and Bologna): ~6 to 7 hours. A time frame of three hours from us is significantly faster than any alternative, even if the passenger only knows three days before departure about the exact details. The tame frame is already fixed at the time of booking.
Q: What can we expect from your company in next 6 months? What are your plans?
A: We are planning to launch first flights to test our product in 2023 within isolated markets and aeroplanes that already exist, wherefore we are in preparation for our first operation as well as we are preparing for our next financing rounds
Q: What is the best thing about your company that people might not know about?
A: Even though we are an airline, most of our attention is on the development and advancement of our algorithms – this is really the core of our business.
