Wheels Up (WUP, Teterboro) has entered into a definitive agreement to buy Avianis Systems, a Texas-based private aviation technology company that provides a Flight Management System (FMS) for private aircraft owners, operators, management companies, charter brokers, and flight departments.
The move is set to strengthen Wheels Up's range of digital products to a growing North American customer base, the membership-based private aviation company said in a statement on September 23.
It explained that the technology investment "will develop new functionality to help private aircraft operators digitise and streamline their services, allowing them to benefit from tools that simplify and speed up task completion via post-booking automation." Acquiring Avianis and its FMS technology will also help its 6,000-plus members to "calculate real-time pricing, feasibility, and availability" while also creating new revenue streams through access to additional demand.
Wheels Up said it would use the FMS to accelerate the development of its own digital platform, enhancing its digital charter marketplace, which currently connects 1,000 “safety-vetted and verified aircraft” to its membership base. Members are able to “instantly look, book, and fly through the Wheels Up app,” the firm added.
Wheels Up operates a members-only fleet of over 115 private aircraft, consisting of Beech (twin turboprop), Cessna Aircraft Company Citation Excel/XLS and Citation X, and Hawker 400XP aircraft “with as little as 24 hours' notice, and at fixed hourly rates for time flown only”. Wheels Up CEO Kenny Dichter told CNBC in August that “three years from now, we want to be the Airbnb, the Open Table, the Hotel Tonight of the private aviation space.”
