Kyle Patel of BitLux: The Future of Air Travel in The Post Covid World
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
If I was to start a movement, it would be focused on self-empowerment. People rely heavily on what others tell them to do and I think the most important thing people can do is focus on what they believe is best. We should empower younger generations to think for themselves. I want to see people not only think for themselves, but also base decisions on truth and information. It is easy to be spoon fed, but how to we get people to pick up the spoon themselves?
As part of my series about “developments in the travel industry over the next five years”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kyle Patel.
Kyle Patel has been in Aviation since day one. With his father being a commercial airline pilot and frequenting Aviation Museums as a child, Kyle has never diminishing passion for Aviation and the business lifestyle that accompanies. From his personal friends and closest clientele to someone just looking for information — he truly enjoys helping people achieve their goals, gain knowledge, and contributing to the successes in the community. When he is not hard at work, Kyle is an avid father, car enthusiast, and gym goer. He frequently visits airports and flies with his son.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
The most interesting, as well as rewarding, thing that I’ve been able to do in my career was helping out with relief efforts after the hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico — Irma and Maria. While with former employer which was also in the private aviation space, I was responsible for the humanitarian aircrafts that went on-site to assist. After seeing the destruction and damage the hurricanes did to the area, one of my clients and I began fundraising to help even more with the relief efforts. We were lucky enough to get the attention of Pittsburgh Pirates as well as other large donors, which allowed for us to travel down to Puerto Rico with commercial airliners, that could seat up to 155 people on the return leg. We collected supplies to help those in need — food, water, dog food, medical supplies etc. — and filled our planes with them. Once we unloaded all the supplies, we brought all those who needed medical help back to the U.S.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
The funniest mistake I made was accidentally sending a plane to the wrong airport. I wish I could say this was early on in my career, but I was farther along in my time in the industry than I’d like to admit. Things were crazy in my life at the time, and I found myself not double checking and re-reading the request that came through. The lesson learned there is to pay attention and re-read everything. It is one of the most fundamental things I tell my staff when onboarding. Every now and then things get looked over, but it is important to have a checks and balances system in place to minimize mistakes.
Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”? Can you share a story about that?
The biggest recommendation I can give to my colleagues within the industry is to take a big picture approach to your business. Take a step back and think about your goals as a company. What is it we are doing? Who are we doing it for? Why are they relying on us to get this done? What does it mean to the community/the person we are helping? Asking yourself questions like this puts things into perspective and allows for you to see the impact you have on those that surround you. A lot of our clients are business-oriented fliers and therefore they rely on us to get from point A to point B in a timely manner with no delay and without doubt that they will arrive at their destination.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
A friend of mine, John, has an incredible story, and his sheer knowledge of business and industry infrastructure is impressive. I turn to him for advice about business constantly — he helped me learn the importance of scaling the business and infrastructure without sacrificing what customers experience on the front end. He is one the biggest and positive influences in my life. Additionally, my grandfather is a very impactful person in my life. He left the military to start his own company and I always looked up to him when I was a child. One of his biggest goals when starting his company was to employ as many people as possible in an impoverished area. He set out to accomplish this and he did. He taught me that an idea and one man can change a community.
Can you share with our readers how have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
One of the many things that we have done to bring goodness into the world was assist during the COVID-19 pandemic. BitLux played a large role in providing PPE during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was an essential need during this time to bring these supplies to hospitals and we were grateful to be able to help the frontline workers.
Thank you for that. Let’s jump to the core of our discussion. Can you share with our readers about the innovations that you are bringing to the Aviation and Air Travel industries?
At BitLux, we are innovating the industry ethically. A lot of people in the aviation industry see private air travel as the black sheep of travel. There is no reason why anyone in the industry should have a bad or negative experience with companies like BitLux in the aviation marketplace. We are focused on bringing positive ethics and moral values into this marketplace.
Additionally, one of the innovations BitLux offers that allows for top tier safety and security is the ability to use cryptocurrency for private jet charter. This ensures safe, secure, anonymous, efficient, and convenient payment — a key part of what makes us industry leaders.
Which “pain point” are you trying to address by introducing these innovations?
The majority of our customers are extremely busy people — through work and their personal lives, they have schedules that cannot be impacted by unreliable travel. Our goal at BitLux is to try and remove any aspect of customers being taken advantage of.
How do you envision that this might disrupt the status quo?
Unfortunately, until BitLux gets to a larger place, we may not disrupt the status quo, however, I’d love for other companies in the industry to adopt our mindset of transparency and honesty throughout the process. As we continue to grow, we hope that our customers appreciate our process and that the competition begin to realize that it is working.
Are there exciting new technologies that are coming out in the next few years that will improve the Air Travel experience? We’d love to learn about what you have heard.
At BitLux we are developing our own proprietary software being developed that is a couple years out. This will be faster, more accurate and interactive, providing our customers with a better overall booking experience. However, the most interesting part about aviation is the archaic nature of the industry. The aviation industry is reliant on so many other variables — the way the fuel gets delivered, the way pilots get to work etc. As that infrastructure evolves, the aviation industry will too.
As you know, the Pandemic changed the world as we know it. For the benefit of our readers, can you help spell out a few examples of how the Pandemic has specifically impacted Air Travel?
We are at a very interesting point in aviation, we have so much demand and not enough supply to facilitate the demand. At the beginning of the pandemic, people were choosing to fly private out of fear — whether it was because they didn’t want to be around strangers or were seriously ill or in a high-risk group. This new interest spurred a larger group of travelers to opern their minds to the option of taking a private plane. The flood gates are now open to this option they previously did not know was an option, especially when looking at the price point for a large family or group. We believe this will continue to grow, or at least stay the course.
Can you share five examples of how the Air Travel experience might change over the next few years to address the new realities brought by the Pandemic? If you can, please give an example for each.
- Inflation Rates — Whether you are in the aviation industry or not, we will all be impacted by inflation. Consumers will have to get used to the difference of what things used to cost and what they cost now, as our money supply has increased by 60%, will have an unknown impact on the world and it will be very interesting to see how this plays out.
- Increase of Demand — Due to the pandemic, the increased demand for private flights continues to rise and I do not see this slowing down. Flexibility is the ultimate perk of private aviation, and we will unfortunately have to adjust to the lack of flexibility due to demand. All those who fly private will now have to start planning ahead more so than they normally would.
- Pricing — As demand continues to increase, so will pricing. Things are really changing due to the demand and cost, both of which have gone sky high, and I don’t see this slowing down any time soon.
- New Planes — Again, with an increase of demand — new planes are needed. There are a great variety of new aircraft coming in to the market that I am excited about. These production numbers that are coming out are great, with revitalizing the sky with new planes.
- Demographic — Our age demographic for passengers is dropping significantly, with the average age group is in their 30’s. Intrestingly, one of our most frequent fliers is just 24 years old. New tecehnology developments and the rapid rise of cryptocurrency is turning the the and bringing with it increased earning and wealth potential for many younger indivdiuals. We will continue to see the age range get younger and younger and I am excited to see this new generations come into aviation and help the industry improve.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
If I was to start a movement, it would be focused on self-empowerment. People rely heavily on what others tell them to do and I think the most important thing people can do is focus on what they believe is best. We should empower younger generations to think for themselves. I want to see people not only think for themselves, but also base decisions on truth and information. It is easy to be spoon fed, but how to we get people to pick up the spoon themselves?
How can our readers further follow your work online?
https://www.instagram.com/bitluxofficial/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bitlux/
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
