Real-time charter bidding platform AeroBid aims for 5,000 users by 2023

AeroBid, a new platform designed for brokers and operators to bid in real-time on aircraft charters, is aiming to sign 1,000 operators and 4,000 brokers to its service by 2023.

The platform, which was launched in April this year, is based in the UK but operates on a global scale. It works by operators placing bids in real time in response to brokers submitting flight requests. Users can set up alerts for requested flights within a chosen airport or region and can view operators’ quotes anonymously to offer a competitive bid or better match a broker’s specific trip requirements. AeroBid claims it is hitting the monthly targets necessary to achieve its goal of 5,000 new users by next year.

The company’s founder, Zaher Deir, told CJI: “So far, we have about 38 operators and over 130 active brokers registered with us. If you look at the statistics and the research we have done, there are 2,000 operators who have between one to five aircraft, and these are the majority of the operators in the market. This is where our platform will serve the small and the large.”

Deir is a pilot with three decades of experience in the private aviation industry spanning engineering, brokerage and operating flights. He set up Jet Connections in 2008, which specialises in private aircraft management, and launched chartering company Pristine JetCharter in Dubai in 2014. Deir said he founded AeroBid to tackle some of the issues he could see impacting the sector. “The system is very old and very basic, and this is where the idea came from,” he said. “We wanted to bring in a new technology into the market and for people to deal with each other in a more transparent way.”

AeroBid highlights its live charter quote system which matches up-to-date quotes between operators and brokers. The platform also gives operators the opportunity to monetise their empty legs, with an alerts system that allows operators to receive requests for flights to or from a particular destination that might otherwise be empty.

Deir told CJI: “I think whoever utilises the platform will solve a great deal of their empty legs. At the moment, there is no one platform which covers everything. There are so many people [that have] tried to resolve this issue. You will find that [in the industry] the operators themselves will send emails to their own customers or the people they know, telling them, ‘We might have a possibility for these empty legs,’ and they hope that the brokers or end users they speak to will utilise them. But on AeroBid, I believe every one-way charter flight request that has a potential empty leg could be filled.”

While he couldn’t disclose the names of companies showing interest, Deir said he has some big potential clients who are about to close. “We have an operator who is about to [register] that has about 60 aircraft, and we have an operator with about 32 aircraft who are just about to finalise their registration. It’s not about the [fleet] numbers, they will all have the same opportunities on our platform.

“From our research, we believe that for every operator we register on the platform, three or four brokers will register as well. The more people we have on the system, the better the platform will work for everybody.” AeroBid is currently running a free trial, after which operators will pay a monthly subscription of $600 per month and are able to register as many aircraft as they have in their fleet, while it will cost brokers $200 per month for unlimited bids on charters.

Meanwhile, AeroBid could extend beyond the aviation industry and into private yacht chartering in the future, Deir said.