The New Era of Plane Travel: Wheels Up

 

Over the past summer, I had the opportunity to work with a new and upcoming small business group, Wheels Up. Wheels up started in 2013 as a small privatized aviation company, but over the past few years have gained over 5000 members. Forbes refers to Wheels Up as the new “Uber” for plane rides, and is expected to experience huge growth in customers over the next few years. While sitting in on a company meeting, I learned how important it is for Wheels Up to create their own branding and market to as many potential consumers in the largest target market group. Their main target markets include corporations, families, and celebrities. We worked on creating an event at the 2017 Masters, where each year many members are added due to the exposure that Wheels Up gives in an environment of opportunity for future business.

The basis of this company relies on connection between members and promoting the company digitally. Members are offered deals and promotions on flights based on their activity and travel. Currently, Wheels Up has basic social media connectivity such as Instagram, Facebook, etc. but have slowly started branching out. Over the past few years, Wheels Up created their own app to help members connect with each other. Much like that of Uber, Wheels Up provides users with the opportunity to use their IPhone app to split airfare costs with other members, and share private aircraft. This creates an option for frequent aircraft users to reduce costs used for the  plane itself, plane storage, transportation costs such as gas, pilot use, and more. With these new implementations, Wheels Up is expected to increase the span of their market to an expected 2-3 million people within the American population.