During the peak of COVID-19 lockdown in Europe, we had the privilege of starting to work with a 100% charter airline.
Tailor-made distribution for repatriation flights
It all started when Privilege Style, a Spanish charter airline based at Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport, decided to operate 4 special flights between Spain and Italy, in cooperation with relevant authorities. The flights were organised for citizens and residents of both countries, who wanted to return home. No one else was allowed to take these flights.
The question was how to quickly distribute these seats but only to the specific population of passengers, due to imposed governmental restrictions.
That’s where CitizenPlane stepped-up and helped.
We teamed-up with our colleagues from Privilege Style and in a matter of hours provided a tailor-made online distribution. CitizenPlane created specific booking links for each flight, allowing only Spanish and Italian citizens and residents to book a flight. Links were then shared with the authorities, who communicated with their respective communities.
All the involved parties helped with their expertises. Authorities allowed and controlled this specific operation, Privilege Style provided a perfect, on-time and safe performance, while CitizenPlane helped with online distribution and opened easy access to thousands of seats.
“It is crucial to offer efficient and agile solutions to market requests, especially in extraordinary situations. CitizenPlane provided just the solution we were looking for with the quickness and professionalism we demand."
Oriol Hernández, Privilege Style CEO
In the following weeks, Privilege Style and CitizenPlane cooperated on repatriation flights to and from Honduras, Chile, Ireland and Spain. Thanks to this first successful cooperation, Privilege Style and CitizenPlane continued to help people around the world safely reach their homes during lockdown.
Opening a distribution channel to the general public
As a charter airline working mainly with tour operators, Privilege Style had never had the opportunity to distribute their seats to the general public. Neither had they had the idea, because it is usually impossible to quickly distribute seats that are chartered at the last minute. Who would think that selling seats on B2C OTAs and metasearches could be so easy?
Our platform allows to create flights effortlessly. As a charter airline, all you need is to have your flight details and to enter them on our platform, a process that usually takes less than 2 minutes. As soon as you enter them, the flights will become available online thanks to our wide distribution channels. More than 120 OTAs worldwide show our flights, which also makes them available on all the main metasearches.
This flexibility and success has reshaped the way Privilege Style thinks about their seat allocation. In such changing times, the ability to offload part of your inventory on the B2C market allows for more risk-taking.
For Privilege Style, this also means trying a new procedure at no cost. At CitizenPlane, we provide free distribution for your seats: we only take a markup on the sales you actually make. What's stopping you from trying us today?
Contact us at hello@citizenplane.com for more detail!