Why it matters to you
New subscription airline ticket service could revolutionize the way we book flights.
Whether it is Netflix or Apple Music, we increasingly live in a world in which subscription-based services are the norm. That is not the case if you are talking about air travel, however. The folks behind a new startup called SkyHi want to change that, courtesy of what they claim is the world’s first subscription platform for unlimited flights.
“The way we fly has been in major need of an update since, well, forever,” Sydney Campos, a marketing executive for SkyHi, told Digital Trends. “For the average consumer, the way we’re trained to fly is antiquated and typically takes months of advanced planning to orchestrate. A lot of the current system has been a result of cost-prohibitive measures making last-minute or spontaneous travel undesirable, due to the associated high expense. The other issue is inefficiency from the airline industry standpoint: Lots of empty seats go unsold and there hasn’t been an efficient way of handling it that benefits all sides. Our platform offers a clear win-win.”
The idea is straightforward: SkyHi users download the mobile app from the iOS or Android app stores, then pay the monthly subscription, and log into the app to make bookings with just a few taps. It’s not quite limitless in the way that, say, Netflix is, but it is certainly vastly simpler than spending hours perusing various airline booking websites. For $199 a month, you get one one-way flight per week (additional ones can be purchased for a $35 booking fee) within a 1,500-mile radius of your current location.
It is a neat idea that its creators hope will disrupt the way we buy our plane tickets. At present, SkyHi’s platform is open for beta access to early members. It will then open more widely in October, with an increasing number of flights and regions being added to the service in the months that follow.
“We see SkyHi being used by the ever-expanding generation of entrepreneurs, freelancers, digital nomads, creatives, and adventurers who have been waiting for something like this to come on the scene,” Campos said. “This is the future of flying — where taking a flight is as typical as booking a train upstate or a ferry across the river.”