Partners in Kind

In my focus on marketing and promotions, I always keep in mind that we’re not just in the transportation business, we’re also in the leisure travel business. While hotels, resorts, and travel advisors create the guest experiences that our clients long to enjoy, we’re the ones that take them where they’re going. We’re the first leg of every getaway, and the last.

That not only makes Tradewind essential to the travel experience, but also partially responsible for the outcome. If a hotel disappoints our passengers with a ho-hum vacation, it reflects poorly on us as well.

As such, we have always sought to forge relationships with only the finest travel entities and hospitality brands, with the goal of developing strategic partnerships with the best in the business of high-touch service to ensure they’ll exceed expectations.

The Benefits of Travel Partnerships

The benefits of such partnerships are two-fold. On one hand, both Tradewind and its partners get exposure to high-end travelers and recognition among clientele for our respective businesses. On the other, the partnerships enhance the actual experiences that travelers set out to enjoy by offering benefits they can only get by completing the circle through us. We provide the air transport and seamless transfers; the hotels provide ground experiences; and the customers enjoy the benefits of both. It’s win-win all around.

Tradewind’s history with partnerships dates to 2006 when we first started flying to Martha’s Vineyard. At that point, we had a few years of service and credibility under our seatbelt, but it was all in Nantucket; no one knew us on Martha’s Vineyard. So, we made an effort to change that by seeking out local second homeowners who wanted a more convenient way to escape New York City on weekends. We found them at The Boathouse & Field Club, a private club in Edgartown on the Vineyard.

I basically phoned The Boathouse and said, “Hey, I think we can help each other here,” proposing a partnership that would offer us exposure to the Club’s members and the Club exposure to Tradewind clients. Many of their members went on to become Tradewind regulars, and many of our Martha’s Vineyard-bound passengers joined The Boathouse. The partnership remains in effect and is still reaping benefits today.

Travel Partnerships Amidst the Pandemic

Travel partnerships played an instrumental role in keeping the industry afloat during the height of the pandemic. Back in the summer of 2020, one of the key challenges facing the travel sector was that people were apprehensive about getting on commercial airlines, and without transportation, there was no way of getting to many hotels. Seeing this as an opportunity, Tradewind teamed up with several high-end properties on St. Barth, long among the most desirable destinations in the Caribbean, to offer an “Ultimate Private Jet Experience” that was exactly right for the moment.

The package included ground transfers for our clients from their homes to a Tradewind private charter to safely travel from the mainland US to Puerto Rico. Upon arrival, they were met with a wing-to-wing transfer to another Tradewind private charter to St. Barth, where one of our partners would pick them up at the airport for a direct transfer to the hotel and lavish them with goodies, such as complimentary spa treatments and special dining occasions. The goal was to transport people safely from point A to vacation point B in a clean, crowdless, stress-free environment, while circumventing the major sticking points of travel during the pandemic. I’m pleased to report the various St. Barth partnership packages did extremely well.

Walking the Talk in St. Barth

As on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, Tradewind’s history on St. Barth dates back from the early 2000s. At the time, many island hotels were apprehensive about pursuing partnerships because many of the local aviation companies that flew in the Caribbean were nothing special. We started off small, approaching a local villa rental company whose owner was a big believer in better transportation to bring more business to St. Barth. He took a chance, telling his agents to promote Tradewind as an improved way to access the island. We held up our part of the bargain by raising the level of air transportation from great to exceptional, and we’ve been the known premium flight provider on St. Barth ever since.

That’s one of the keys to success in partnerships: Walking the walk and talking the talk. Once the benefits of our partnership with the villa rental company became apparent, other properties on St. Barth started to follow suit.

The travel media is always looking for good content, and a great partnership pushes all the right buttons for coverage. The “Ultimate Private Jet Package,” for instance, became its own story because it had multiple elements. If either Tradewind or a hotel had offered a deal on its own, it wouldn’t have garnered much media interest.

Finding Creative Partnerships

Hotels aren’t Tradewind’s only partners. We have an ongoing partnership with The Nantucket Project, an annual, multi-day event that draws notable speakers from the worlds of entertainment, technology, politics and more to weigh in on current hot-button issues. While not inexpensive for us to maintain this partnership, the great audience and media exposure surrounding The Nantucket Project is unmatched.

We have also teamed up with luxury travel advisors, who are always interested in providing experiences of strong value to their clients. Last year during the peak of the pandemic, for instance, we partnered with the bespoke luxury travel agency Embark Beyond to offer a series of day-trips that felt like real vacations – “daycations”, that is – perfect for those who just wanted to get away from it all, without having to go through the hassle and health-related uncertainties of staying at hotels or dining in public restaurants. The destinations were lovely resorts in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, the historic small town of New Hope, Pennsylvania, and the Blue Ridge Mountains of Charlottesville, Virginia. The package highlights included private transfers, a beautiful intimate lunch, topped off by a private return flight back home at the end of the day.

In the end, it is imperative for both sides of a partnership to know their clientele. All the private transfers and complimentary spa treatments in the world won’t get a traveler out the door if they have no interest in where they’re headed. Clients, in other words, are your partners, too.

Wait for It: The Future of Aviation will be Electric

It only takes a glance at the news to see the effects of climate change all over the map these days. Typical of our times, there is a lot of disagreement on the issue. But after a recent getaway spent exploring the Galápagos Islands with National Geographic Expeditions, Eric and I returned home sure of one thing: If the ecology of the archipelago that inspired the theory of evolution doesn’t make you concerned for the precarious state of our planet, you may need to look a little deeper into your soul.

The two of us are among many thinking about the environmental impact of the aviation industry and, in our case, how Tradewind Aviation can take steps to reduce it – now and in the future. As the development of electric planes takes off, we want to be part of the transformation, just as Tesla has been for ground transportation.

The Now: Carbon Offset Programs

Sustainability has actually been on our minds for quite a while, and we are fortunate that the nature of our business enables Tradewind to fly smaller, very efficient aircraft like Pilatus PC-12s and Citation CJ3s, which have a low impact on the environment.

Just last fall, we launched a new Carbon Offset Program, offering Tradewind clients the opportunity to offset the carbon emissions of their flight activity through premiums. The offsets – totally voluntary, available at booking, and applicable to scheduled service, private charter flights, and the Goodspeed Flight Card program – go to TerraPass, a social enterprise headquartered in Houston that uses proceeds from partner companies like ours to fund greenhouse gas reduction projects, ranging from wind farms to methane digesters.

The Carbon Offset Program has been well received by Tradewind passengers, who are impressed not only by its promise but also with its cost. An hour of flight time on a Pilatus PC-12 – about as long it takes us to fly from White Plains to Nantucket, or San Juan, Puerto Rico, to St. Jean, St. Barths – is offset for just $7. That’s mist in the bucket for our clientele, as we say in Connecticut. (Well, some of us, anyway...)

The Future: Electric Air Transportation

While electric air transportation still has a way to go, it is getting there. Large aircraft that travel long distances for major airlines may one day be able to go electric, but perhaps not in our lifetimes. It’ll take significant technological breakthroughs to surmount their energy-to-weight ratio: An empty Boeing 777 weighs 297,300 pounds, after all. Just imagine the size of the batteries it would take to lift something like that.

Instead, developers aspiring toward commercially feasible electric planes are focused on the shorter and lighter end of the market, with Jetsons-like convenience being the dream. Helicopters powered by gas turbine engines have seen success there already, but they’re generally limited to major metropolitan areas like Los Angeles or New York City, where quick hops from Manhattan to JFK, say, work just fine. Throw in driving time for drop offs and pickups in more rural areas, however, and the environmental impact of helicopter flight rises while the environmental value proposition drops.

A Market Ready for Electric

Tradewind’s market is different. Our turboprops are sized to carry a maximum of 8 passengers on routes of 100 to 300 miles, making an effective energy-to-weight ratio easier to attain. They can also take off and land at more than 5,000 local airports across the country, reducing the average time it takes our clients to get from their homes to their cabin seats to around 30 minutes – vastly less than the typical 3 hours passengers spend getting to and departing from commercial flights at major airports. What’s more, our client base is interested in sustainable travel, as revealed by their response to our Carbon Offset Program. Taken together, the value proposition for our market to go electric is already there.

New technologies tend to work best when rolled out in markets whose clientele can afford them. Costs go down eventually, of course, but that can take a while. In the meantime, as a dear friend of ours often said: “Tradewind is in the service business, not the aviation business.” Customer satisfaction is the main driver for us, and looking ahead, it’s critical that we can guarantee the same level of service which we have built our reputation on providing for any electric aircraft we ultimately incorporate into our fleet. We want to be on the leading edge, that is, not the bleeding edge. 

When a better option to the efficient turboprop fleet we’ve spent 20 years assembling organically comes along, we’ll jump on it. Until then, we’ve seen a lot of companies come and go in the aviation industry, and they’re usually throwing money at things on their way out the exit. It’s a complicated business: stumble rolling out new things, and your clients will go somewhere else.

A Pilot’s Perspective on Private Aviation

My brother David and I got into flying because our father was a private pilot, and into private aviation because he was a successful entrepreneur. A consumer products manufacturer when home improvement got hot, our father was always looking to improve on things – in business and in the air. We carried that with us into Tradewind Aviation.

Growing up, I was at the Danbury Airport in Connecticut all the time, and it wasn’t long before I could call myself a “propeller head.” While Dad flew his Cessna and David and I trained to become pilots, I poked around the airport looking for something interesting to do.

My pursuit ended with an entry-level job answering the phone for an air charter company. The business was strictly mom-and-pop, flying clients to Nantucket in flivvers – that is, small planes with a single pilot and no service to speak of. The customers were captains of industry more accustomed to going coast-to-coast in posh Gulfstreams, but they went along because there were no alternatives for such short flights at the time.

As I moved up in the company and learned the inner workings of the air charter business, it dawned on me that customers would pay for a better flight experience. Improving that experience became a defining principle for Tradewind Aviation. Never mind flivvers: When David and I launched in 2001, we began building a fleet, starting with Cessna Grand Caravans, and growing to a fleet of turboprop Pilatus PC12s and light jet Citation CJ3s. With these aircraft, we could carry more passengers as well as two pilots, which remains a key to the attentive service we provide. At the start of Tradewind, I was often one of the pilots on the line. Occasionally, I still am.

Airline executives who are pilots are few and far between. I like to think that being a pilot gives me a perspective on private aviation and the all-important customer experience that other executives lack.

For one thing, my comfort in the cockpit enables me to more effectively and accurately support the pilots who fly the Tradewind fleet, and that, in turn, guides them in supporting our clients. Indeed, personability with passengers is one of the qualities we hire for. After all, unlike in commercial or luxury jet aviation, the pilots are only a few feet removed from the passengers in all of our aircraft.

Similarly, our pilots have had a huge part in developing Tradewind’s customer service standards. They are curbside and the first point of contact when clients arrive at the terminal, and they’re on hand to assist with luggage, hand out snacks, discuss details of the flight, and reassure anyone who asks about Tradewind’s flawless safety record – and many do. Though it may seem small, that kind of service adds up.

We also encourage pilots to look for ways to help clients understand that both our planes and our organization are going to provide them with a safe, reliable experience. Though less than 5% of passengers express concerns about safety, we can’t just assume they all know. Again, having two pilots on every flight is key, enabling us to scale to ensure that all of our crew follows the same procedures, the better to communicate our record.

In the same vein, I believe the pandemic taught pilots that safety is a much broader concept than getting a plane safely off and back on the ground again. In my mind, it crystalized the importance of being able to articulate to customers the various procedures we take to eliminate the risks of aviation, and how dedicated we are to putting health and safety first. We didn’t always think about general health until the pandemic. Now we do.

I still fly Tradewind shuttle routes a couple times each month, and I regularly participate in all aspects of our pilot training program including the “check rides” and “initial operating experiences” that are required for new pilots by the Federal Aviation Administration. I’m also approved by the French Civil Aviation Authority for training our pilots to fly in and out of St. Barths, which has its own unique challenges that our Pilatus PC12s are designed to handle.

Oh, and David? He’s a purely recreational pilot these days with his own amphibious seaplane, a Aviat Husky that he keeps on a lake at his home in Connecticut and often flies to one of our Tradewind bases at Westchester Country Airport. I used to teach people to fly seaplanes, so I know the thrill he gets from being able to land anywhere there’s water.

Working from Anywhere with Tradewind Aviation

From curbside pickup to comfy fashions, the coronavirus pandemic has prompted many new trends. But ‘working from anywhere’? Its roots predate the arrival of COVID-19 by decades. My brother David and I know, because Tradewind Aviation helped get working from anywhere off the ground.

Dial back to 2001 and the start of Tradewind Aviation. At the time, people of means were already using private aviation to fly between vacation homes and offices. But to our eyes, they were not getting the value that we believed the industry could provide.

Then came 9/11. In the stressful weeks and months that followed, the simple act of flying commercial changed radically. As major airlines limited flights, the newly created Transportation Security Administration turned accessing a seat on a plane into a major hassle by rummaging through carry-on baggage at security checkpoints; calling for “female/male assists” when metals ticked off magnetometers; and confiscating nail files, toothpicks, and other everyday items that could potentially be considered dangerous.

With our company only months old, we saw an opportunity to build on our lifelong passions for entrepreneurship and transform private aviation by creating a new, more efficient operation to meet an existing demand. Tradewind Aviation was born out of solving a problem for people who had to go through a lot of rigmarole just to get to their vacation homes.

Among the issues we identified was the poor value proposition of commercial aviation for travelers on relatively short flights. For many of them, the process of getting from primary home to vacation home was rife with inconveniences, including a long drive to a major airport, a lengthy pre-departure and security check ritual, tight seating in a crowded cabin, and then another long drive upon arrival. That process is why commercial service to less-trafficked destinations tend to fluctuate seasonally: Major carriers are hamstrung by the traditional airline system, and passengers must settle for what they get.

But a private operator can avoid all that, creating a more efficient and convenient travel experience. Among readily available comforts that we knew Tradewind Aviation could provide were departures from smaller airports, access to private aviation (FBO) terminals and lounges – and best of all, no TSA security checkpoints required.

There were other options available from private aviation operators when we launched our first shuttle route from New York to Nantucket, but not many: Mostly small planes that were not well maintained, with infrequent service and inconsistent quality. So we built Tradewind Aviation around the modern turboprop concept, growing a fleet of Pilatus PC-12s that provide the safety and efficiency of a private jet with much better economics for short- and medium-range flights.

With lower operating costs, Tradewind was able to offer private charter flights and shared charter seats for about a quarter of the price of other private aviation options, expanding our client base to a larger audience. This created a new market, making it feasible for people to travel back and forth between weekend homes and the office without having to invest a ton of time or money – and enjoy the experience.

With the success of our private charter flights throughout the Northeast and New York to Nantucket schedule route, we began adding scheduled flights to more regional destinations: First Martha’s Vineyard, and in 2016 we launched operations in the Caribbean between San Juan and St. Barths, Anguilla, Nevis, Antigua, and St. Thomas. Later we launched service to Boston and Stowe, Vermont from New York and our newest route to Newport, Rhode Island will launch in the summer of 2021.

Spurred by the pandemic, ‘working from anywhere’ is now more popular and feasible than ever. Policies vary by industry, of course, but in general employers are accepting of people working from home to protect themselves, their families, and staff. Meanwhile, people are reconsidering where to lay down roots and raise families, heightening the appeal of areas beyond easy commutes.

Despite the trend growing from the pandemic, we do not think the demand will disappear on the other side. While the initial rush to private aviation during the pandemic revolved around health and safety, we and other operators have seen a flood of new clients come into the fold for other reasons. Essentially, when people realize the efficiencies we offer and that the cost of private aviation meets their budgets, they’re going to stick with it – especially as things like weddings, dinner parties, and face-to-face board meetings that have been on hold for so long become feasible again. 

Meantime, with the private aviation model we created, Tradewind can now fly people pretty much anywhere via charter, with more than 5,000 local airports accessible by our fleet. As more people across the country discover the appeals of ‘working from anywhere,’ we’re looking to expand.