Imagine you're a newly minted millionaire. You are planning to fly between New York and Los Angeles, but want to do so in a private, luxurious manner. You go to a broker who then contacts an FAA Part 135 operator. 

This then initiates a back and forth that can last for weeks until you finally secure a private jet to fly. But what if you need to charter a private jet on short notice? Guess you’re out of luck. 

Prior to LEVO, this is the hitch that part 135 operators and their clients found themselves in.

Chartering a private jet often-times took days, if not weeks to accomplish, due to the multitude of “moving parts” (such as pilots, plane availability and maintenance) that needed to come together perfectly in order for a jet to be chartered. 

According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), a Part 135 operator is one that operates non-scheduled, on-demand flights using its planes. In the simplest form, a part 135 operator is a private jet company that provides charter operations.

A new startup, LEVO, intends to streamline the process of chartering a private jet for both clients and part 135 operators. How does the company intend to do this? 

To gain a better understanding of how LEVO intends to disrupt and streamline the chaotic Part 135 charter industry, I hopped on a call with the co-founder of the company Joe Moeggenberg. 

Joe Moeggenberg is a legend with over 40 years of experience in the private jet industry. After working as a delivery pilot at Cessna, he went on to become the president of private jet giant NetJets before eventually arriving at LEVO after the COVID-19 pandemic. 

What made you decide to co-found LEVO? What's so wrong with the private jet industry today?

"The concept of working with small to midsize Part 135 operators is to make them more efficient because it’s a very complicated business. Operating corporate jets, with pilots, maintenance, and scheduling, has lots of moving parts. I was thinking, 'How do we streamline this whole process?' That’s what started LEVO Ops," says Moeggenberg.

What Mr. Moeggenberg is referring to with LEVO Ops is the company's ERP - 

Enterprise Resource Planning Tool. 

While the software tool was developed by another company, LEVO is the first in the private and charter jet industries to utilize this software and develop it into a mature platform. 

The company has done this by customizing its Enterprise Resource Planning Tool and tailoring it for LEVO’s clients, which are primarily FAA Part 135 operators who charter private flights. 

“[We’re] making their whole work process flow much easier from initial contact from the customer or the aircraft owner all the way through the whole journey of getting that journey completed successfully." says Moeggenberg in regards to the process of chartering a private jet. 

Mr. Moeggenberg was previously the CEO of ARGUS, and since he sold it, he has been pursuing the development of his company's ERP. After finding a partner company in Nashville with experience in ERP software and a “beta” customer, Moeggenberg began to develop LEVO’s tailor-made ERP software for Part 135 operators. 

The problem with the current state of FAA Part 135 operators (aircraft management companies) is that they have to go through brokers or large charter operators. This leads to business and revenue being very unstable for these operators and the fluctuating prices that brokers offer. 

Often-times with these deals, part 135 operators lose direct communication between their customers, because brokers act as the middle-men in charter jet deals. LEVO aims to remove the middle-man (in this case, the broker) between part 135 operators and their clients, allowing for a fast and easy booking process. 

The company partially achieves this goal through the use of API’s, or application programming interfaces. API’s are software “intermediaries” that allow two applications, or softwares, to talk to each other and communicate information. APIs allow LEVO to obtain information from part 135 operators on metrics such as aircraft and crew availability.

“KAYAK” For Charter Flights 

LEVO allows a client to book a charter flight trip with any operator through the company's ERP system. The company is able to do this, because they have API’s (application programming interfaces) that take into account charter plane schedules, availability, pricing, and aircraft location. 

Using these metrics, LEVO is able to showcase aircraft availability to clients depending on where they want to go on a sort of “marketplace”. Similar to how one can book a commercial flight through a company like KAYAK or Expedia.   

"...High-net-worth individuals or companies that charter frequently - they want to shorten the lines of communication - they want to deal directly with the operator. We hear that over and over again. With LEVO, instead of going through a broker who then has to go through the operator and then has to go back and forth, this really shortens the line of communication. And the way the site is set up, you can pay for the flight directly through our site. That’s basically where we’re heading," states Moeggenberg.

The impact that LEVO and its ERP software will have on the private jet and charter flight industries cannot be understated. 

If you are a current or prospective private charter client looking to test out LEVO’s ERP software, you can obtain a free demo through levo.aero.