One price for unlimited miles among the clouds

Photo: Paolo Nicolello/Unsplash

More and more users are becoming interested in Surf Air’s »all you can fly« model. The only question is now how profitable it can become.

Flying with commercial airlines has not changed much in the last decades. Passengers buy a plane ticket, walk through security, board an aeroplane, and take off towards their final destination. 

The monthly subscription fee for Surf Air, which provides unlimited flights, starts at 2500 euros per month.

Airlines have connected the world. They have drastically shortened the time needed to get from one end of the planet to the other. But despite this, the clouds aren’t all sunshine and rainbows. A new millennium has arrived, bringing higher fuel prices, increased competition, acquisitions, and a multitude of bankruptcies. Air travel companies, from large low-fare providers to luxury airlines are still looking for the right business model. However, more and more customers are interested in the solutions offered by the subscription economy, for living life per month among the clouds. 

For all who spend at least a few days each month in the air, or simply like to fly to various destinations, the subscription service by the American company, Surf Air, might be just the ticket. The Californian company started by offering flights from airports in California and Texas.

It soon expanded the service to include Europe, where passengers could fly in Swiss aeroplanes, Pilatus PC-12, from Switzerland, Germany, Austria, all the way to France, Spain, Italy, Luxembourg, and Belgium. But after 17 months on the Old Continent, Surf Air had to retreat from the European skies in December 2018, due to a capital shortage, focusing once again on their home terrain in America.

Surf Air’s passengers are first faced with a simple decision. They must answer if they would prefer to pay for tickets as they go, or pay a fixed amount once per month. In both cases, it’s a subscription. 

For all who want to pay as they go for the tickets, for which the prices in California start at 545 dollars, the right to fly in Surf Air’s business aeroplanes will costs 2500 a year, or just over 200 dollars a month (not including the price of the ticket or tickets).

The airline company, Surf Air, is attracting customers with time savings, good prices, and flights in premium aircraft, intended for business people.

The monthly subscription fee for the Surf Air service that provides unlimited flights, starts at 2500 euros per month. When first concluding the subscription contract, users also need to pay a one-off membership fee, which in California amounts to 1000 dollars. 

The prices are worth it for anyone who flies Business Class at least five times each month. According to data for the USA market, from the German company Statista, the average price of a Business Class aeroplane ticket in the second quarter of last year, was 514 dollars.  Meanwhile, the American Bureau of Transportation Statistics estimates that the average return flight ticket in the USA is around 350 dollars.

Photo: Surf Air

What are the key advantages of Surf Air, the »first private air travel club«? There are several. The first is definitely the time savings. Surf Air works under the principles of charter flights, so it does not follow a regular schedule, but adjusts the flights to the needs of the subscribers. The aeroplanes take off and land on smaller airfields, which means shorter security queues, bringing additional time savings. »We fly between offices. We take off in the morning, and we’re home for dinner in the evening«, is how one of the business people flying with Surf Air described their service.

For anyone who really flies a lot, the other advantage is the price, as the flights with regular carriers would cost more, especially in Business Class. And this is where we find the third benefit of Surf Air: the subscribers fly in a premium aircraft, intended for business people. They cannot get this comfort for this price, anywhere else.