Surf Air’s Enterprise BrokerOS will create charter growth opportunities for Wheels Up through faster throughput and lead conversion rates.
Wheels Up Experience will be the launch customer for Enterprise BrokerOS, Surf Air Mobility’s charter broker product powered by Palantir Technologies Inc.’s Foundry and Artificial Intelligence Platform, per an announcement this morning from Surf Air.
The initial agreement has a two-year term, plus an option for a third year.
It includes “customary software service level guarantees.”
Surf Air Mobility is expected to receive up to $12 million in subscription fees.
Wheels Up brings over $1 billion in total gross charter bookings.
In its most recent quarter, Surf Air reported $10.1 million in on-demand private charter revenue, a 77% year-over-year increase.
“The deployment of Surf Air Mobility’s Enterprise BrokerOS marks another milestone in Wheels Up’s ongoing transformation, which has centered on delivering best-in-class operational reliability, modernizing its owned and operated fleet, and delivering a differentiated premium travel experience to its members and customers through its uniquely customer-centric business model,” according to the press release.
The initial phase of the partnership focuses on transforming Wheels Up’s charter workflow via Surf Air Mobility’s BrokerOS software product, integrating critical data sources, enabling faster, more informed decision-making across the charter booking process, and enhancing charter solutions for customers.
Wheels Up CEO George Mattson said, “This partnership is a defining step in solidifying Wheels Up as the most customer-centric, AI-forward, and operationally excellent company in private aviation.”
He added, “By combining Wheels Up’s scale, brand, and aviation expertise with Surf Air Mobility’s transformative aviation software and Palantir’s leadership in AI, we are setting a new standard for how private aviation is sold, operated, and experienced. This is technology as a competitive advantage in the marketplace, not a back-office function.”
Surf Air Mobility Co-founder Liam Fayed said, “We built BrokerOS to solve the specific complexities of private aviation, and the value we’ve seen on our own on-demand private charter business has given us conviction in what it delivers.”
He continued, “Wheels Up’s mission to be the most technologically advanced private aviation company makes them an ideal enterprise launch customer to demonstrate the impact of BrokerOS at scale.”
Palantir Global Commercial Head Ted Mabrey commented, “What Surf Air has done is exceptionally hard: codifying operator expertise into technology that runs their own business, and now proving that it can work for others.”
He said, “Wheels Up’s launch of SurfOS is validation that Surf Air’s opinion as an operator translates — and the Palantir Ontology and backbone ensures it can deliver at scale, with enterprise-grade security, governance, and access to the most cutting-edge AI.”
The deployment of BrokerOS replaces multiple legacy software platforms for Wheels Up.
The result will be freeing up engineering and operational capacity.
Wheels Up will get cost and productivity benefits.
BrokerOS is expected to create top-line charter growth opportunities by accelerating throughput and improving lead conversion rates.
The Surf Air platform streamlines aircraft sourcing, quote generation, booking, and customer relationship management.
It also consolidates supply across Wheels Up’s owned fleet operations and network of third-party operators.
Manual workflows will be automated, enabling brokers to manage higher transaction volume.
Delivering real-time business intelligence to surface actionable insights
Surf Air recently attracted an investment from Ken Griffin’s Citadel.
It recently rolled out its charter booking platform to travel agents.
Last year, Surf Air said it had six LOIs for SurfOS.
Delta Air Lines controls 36% of Wheels Up.
In 2023, Portside acquired licensing rights to Avianis from Wheels Up.
Founder and former CEO Kenny Dichter previously called the 2019 Avianis deal his “most important acquisition…think Double Click to Google.”
Then Chief Platform Officer and former CEO of Avianis, Daniel Tharp, told investors before Wheels Up’s July 2021 IPO that the technology would be the platform for “a real-time, high-fidelity view of the inventory, not only for our own fleets here at Wheels Up but also for our fleet partners.”
He continued, “This is when the global aircraft search engine comes into play. As we roll out this technology in the coming months, fleet operators around the world will be able to publish their high-fidelity fleet availability in real-time, making this the first hi-fi instantly searchable clearinghouse for private aviation aircraft supply.”
Wheels Up bought Avianis for $14.4 million in cash and 2,011,495 in common interests in September 2019.
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