VAI Member Spotlight: Airble, Canada Start-up seeks to establish faster and easier connections in the process of getting from point A to point B. Imagine a cross between ride-hailing service Uber and peer-to-peer car-rental service Turo where you could dictate where you wanted to fly to from your current location and have an aircraft on standby when you arrive. That concept is what Airble is building from its home base in British Columbia, Canada. Airble is an online platform that connects people with operators of helicopters, private jets, and other aircraft for on-demand charter flights. The service, accessible via the Airble website or phone app, links users to the company’s partnerships with air operators in nearly 30 Canadian cities and 10 American cities across North America. Unlike other apps that rely on brokers to manually connect various services, Airble developed an approach that relies on technology. Instead of a broker calling multiple operators to set up pricing and availability, the Airble service automatically calculates live pricing and availability based on pre-negotiated contracts with its operators. When a user enters their desired route, Airble’s system provides options for flight times, launch location, aircraft availability, and even cost-saving available empty flight legs. Users can either book directly through Airble’s platform or choose to be connected to the operator’s own booking system via application programming interface (API) integration to complete a booking. Company History Saeed Golzar initially founded Airble in 2019 with seed money from his family. Golzar spent the next year navigating regulatory approvals from Transport Canada, the Canadian Transportation Agency, the FAA, and the US Department of Transportation as part of his efforts to launch the service. While the company temporarily paused operations in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Airble resumed operations at the end of 2022, officially launching the service in 2023. “Our goal is to provide users with the most comprehensive and efficient on-demand air travel experience,” Golzar says. “My vision is to make Airble the go-to platform for private air travel in North America, offering a wide range of aircraft options—from helicopters and turboprops to private jets—to fly you anywhere you want to go. We are also changing the perception of private aviation, making it more accessible to a wider range of people by literally putting the ability to book a private aircraft in the palm of their hands.” Future Growth Airble is rapidly expanding its network, adding several operators a month into its system, with a goal of reaching more than 2,000 operators in the United States alone. The company is in talks with investors to raise capital and accelerate growth to meet this goal more quickly. The additional funding would allow Airble to hire more sales and business development staff to help onboard new operators at a faster rate. Airble is already catching on with operators. The company reported half a million dollars in revenue in its first year of reporting financial results and is on track to exceed that figure in 2024. Hi, I'm Chris DeJoy
