Privesa launches AI platform for charter brokerages

The Naples, Florida-based startup launched in August and is running its first proof of concept with an unnamed charter brokerage, founder Logan Cassidy told us.

Founder Logan Cassidy said Privesa gives charter brokers more capacity, better sourcing intelligence and more time to focus on relationships, while helping operators receive better-matched charter enquiries.

At 6:00am, while a charter broker dreamt of a good deal, Privesa was working his trip. The software’s sourcing agents had contacted operators, read their quotes and surfaced the best-value option, $10,000 below the next best quote. “That was a big win, and it all happened before the broker was at his desk,” Cassidy told us.

The Naples, Florida-based startup launched in August and is running its first proof of concept (POC) with an unnamed charter brokerage. Cassidy describes Privesa as an AI-powered layer between supply and demand in business aviation, sourcing options for brokers and bringing operators “better-qualified” demand.

“Supply, demand, fragmentation in between,” he said. “Privesa is the intelligent orchestration layer that collapses that, automates the workflows and makes it efficient on both ends.”

From enterprise IT to music tours to brokerage

Cassidy’s route into business aviation was the result of being in the right place at the right time. After university he worked in enterprise IT sales, but when the cloud took over and infrastructure sales dwindled, he went back to his passion for music, a “total 180”, and started managing artists.

Talent management was not for Cassidy, but he had built valuable relationships with artists, record labels and agencies. The pivot into aviation came at a music festival in Jacksonville, Florida, where one of his artists was performing. The festival owner’s best friend ran a jet operator, and the two hit it off. “He met me at an intersection where I was trying to change something,” said Cassidy.

He moved into charter brokerage, with touring artists making up most of his early client base, but his technology background made the sector’s gaps hard to ignore. “People are paying 40, 60, $80,000 for a private charter,” he said. “I realised that the tech was significantly behind the price tag and the experience these clients were asking for.”

He argues the result is brokers relying on manual work and limited data to make high-stakes decisions — which operator to trust, which aircraft truly fits, whether a quote is accurate — in a process “where there’s room for error”, costing operators revenue and clients value.

Plenty of startups have tried to bring software to charter; some have been successful, but few have stuck. Cassidy thinks the difference now is timing. “Right now technology is better than it was yesterday, and tomorrow it’ll be better than it was today.”

Agents don’t sleep

Privesa is built for charter brokers. Cassidy said the software automates 80-85% of the repetitive work a broker does behind the scenes, freeing them to spend more time with clients or take on more of them. In a few clicks it reviews Privesa’s proprietary data to find the best operators for the job, based on where aircraft are positioned, how operators have quoted and responded on similar trips, and their safety and reliability record, then sends each one a clear, complete request.

As quotes come in, Privesa’s sourcing agents read them, extract the details that matter, such as wi-fi availability, maximum passengers or whether a seat is in the lavatory, and turn the best options into a polished client proposal in minutes. Brokers can put more, better-informed proposals in front of clients, faster. Unusual questions, like how much luggage will fit, go to the broker.

The POC has one user, the brokerage’s founder, who wants to “get his feet wet” before rolling it out to his team, but Cassidy hopes this trial sets a precedent. “We want to grow that footprint inside the brokerage, and then scale to other companies as well,” he said.

Good deals aside, Privesa has caught human errors. On one international trip, one person on an operator’s email thread said their aircraft had Starlink wi-fi, another said it did not, but the broker only read the latest email. “It was an international trip. That would have lost the client, but Privesa flagged it and said: ‘Hey, we have an issue here with the data that we received from the operator’. Now that broker knows to make a phone call,” said Cassidy.

The biggest prize is data. Privesa learns from every trip: it can tell which operators know a route well, which respond quickly, and how best to contact them. “Whether to email or call might slip past a broker who is sending hundreds of emails. Privesa knows which operators would rather get a call,” Cassidy said. That also means operators only receive requests that make sense for their aircraft and where they’re positioned, he added.

Next, it will recognise operators with strong dispatch and on-time records. “As it starts to build this aggregate of proprietary data, brokers are going to have intelligence that they simply don’t have access to right now, and good operators will get the business they deserve,” he said.

Brokerages first

Privesa took Cassidy around six months to build, working “12-hour days, every day”, and he has no grey hair to show for it. In the short term, he said success means signing the first 10 brokerages and “giving them a product and an experience that they love and changes how they work”. Longer term, he said: “[We want] to redefine the entire charter business and marketplace as it is today, where both sides are reaping the benefits.”

For now, the company is listening, he said. “We’re builders. So: what do you like? Where are your challenges? And where can we help better solve those things?”