Combo Deals -- Do they work?

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:uJDZe.402545$xm3.398599@attbi_s21...
How about putting ads in the Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Quad Cities, etc.,
newspapers with reduced room rates if an intro flight is taken? Guests
can take an intro flight either at IOW or bring a coupon saying they took
one recently someplace for the discount. Say if a room is $75/night
without a intro flight or $65 w/intro flight included, I would take the
intro flight just for the discount.

I personally think that's a great idea, but our local FBO is not keen on
teaching people to fly. For them it's, at best, a break-even business
venture -- or, at least, that's what they like to tell us.

Your local FBO, and mine, and all the others are going to be sucking serious
wind in 10 years, maybe less because they are not turning over every rock in
sight trying to find and train new pilots. Once all the old guys (no slight
here, but the aviation crowd is a very old demographic) stop flying, the GA
market is going to contract in a huge way, and the sales of fuel,
accessories, airplane rental, and everything else is going to drop like a
rock.

The odd thing is that the FBO's don't seem to realize that they are cutting
their own throats when they don't recruit new pilots and/or when they try to
do anything more than break even on student pilots. In many businesses,
there is a loss leader which is used to get the consumer in the door, with
the next step being to upgrade that customer to something more profitable.
Our FBO's need to adopt the same principle, and forget profiting on PPSEL
students. Once folks are pilots, that's when the FBO's stand a chance to
make money in rentals, rating upgrades, fuel, etc.

My home FBO, for instance sold its fleet of C-152's ($42/hr) a few years ago
and replaced them with C-172's ($75 - $120/hr, depending on the airplane).
Simulataneously, they upped their primary training instructor rate from
$21/hr to $35/hr. That took the cost of dual instruction from ~$65/hr wet
to ~$110/hr wet, even in the FBO's doggiest C-172. For the student who only
needed 20 dual hours and 20 solo hours to "graduate", those changes added
~$1,600 to the cost of getting a PPSEL.

We *do* offer 30 minute flights for up to 3 people for just $75 bucks
through them, which is a GREAT deal nowadays. (It was $60, until the
latest gas price run-up...)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

What Jim Burns said, plus....

Glass Cockpit ground school!!!
G-1000
and
Garmin 430/Entegra

It seems to me that you have to look at it from an FBO/Flight
Training/Airport/Pilots Groups point of view. Rather than the hotel being
their destination, the event or the service must be the destination. The
package and the hotel are the reason that they want to do it at IOW rather
than at home. So, how do you get more out of town people to the airport and
keep them there overnight? Misdirect a loaded airliner into IOW.

Ideas and a few that I've actually been involved in.

Wings Weekends
Weekend Ground Schools
HP/Complex Weekends
Glider Weekend
Aerobatics Weekend
Maintenance Weekend
Basic Maintenance Package Deal
Pinch Hitter Course
Iowa City Alexis Park Inn Aviation Seminars and Pig Roast featuring the Beer
of the Week
CFI Refresher Clinic

Wings Weekends can be done if your FSDO is capable of doing a safety seminar
per your request. If your FSDO is currently broke (like Wisconsin's) they
may authorize a CFI nearby to be the Safety Councilor and qualify him to
conduct the Safety Seminar to complete the Wings Program. That's what
they've done here in Wisconsin. You tell them what you want to do, they
help you get info and materials, then approve your seminar and give you the
Wings Certificates.

Weekend Groundschools. You could get Aviation Seminars to come in for a
weekend, or if you want, I can put you in contact with a couple CFI's near
me that do them for Private and Instrument. These can draw students from
far and wide because there are students everywhere that like the finality of
these programs and "just want to get it over." They also appeal to students
who can't attend the traditional weekly classes.

We've also done a couple HP/Complex Weekends. Ground training and 2-3 hours
training in a HP/Complex airplane. We were lucky enough to have a rental on
the field, but I know of several CFI's that came to us and rented the 182RG
to take it to their location to do the same type of program. One problem
that students are having is that some of the smaller 2 year aviation
programs do not own their own HP/Complex, and it's up to the students to get
that endorsement on their own. Is there a secondary school aviation program
in Iowa City?

Glider Weekend. This one could be tough. If you could contact your recent
glider friends and talk them into coming down to IOW with a glider and tow
plane, you may be able to pull it off.

Basic aerobatic instruction and demonstrations may also bring interested
pilots.

Maintenance Weekend. Have several A&P's put on demonstrations and give talks
about maintenance that airplane owners can perform and what renter pilots
should be knowledgeable of. I'd skip the annual thing, most people have
pointed out the obvious reason of needing something that wasn't available or
not being able to get parts on quick notice or during the weekend. BUT I
would seriously consider oil changes, tire installs/inspections/rotations,
brake work, plug cleaning, and mag timing/inspection, and fuel top off. For
the right price that would be very tempting to fly in, attend an aviation
seminar or two, send the wife to the masseuse, then have a great dinner and
some "beer of the week". With pre-registration, you could get all the info
to the A&P/IA so he would have everything in stock and maybe even be able to
comply with some of the repetitive 100 hour type AD's. Even without the
seminars, you could call it a basic maintenance weekend package, and it may
appeal to individual pilots throughout the year.

While any of the above is happening, you need to keep spouses busy and
happy. Your in(n) house massage therapist, swimming pool, exercise room can
be kept busy in this area. Day bus trips to Amana would no doubt also
appeal to women. Artsy fartsy stuff may apply. Maybe even one of those
in-house Tupperware or scrapbooking parties.

You could also put on a Pinch Hitter Co-Pilot or Spousal Orientation
Seminar. Mary would be awesome with this and not only put the pilot's wives
at ease, but give them special insight into learning to fly and flying from
a woman's perspective.

Evenings would be open to wine or beer tasting and barbeque around the pool
or in a banquet room.

Do your local EAA chapters have a "regional" type meeting, where they invite
EAA members from other chapters to a central event for the weekend? If not,
get them to organize it and then work with them to offer different options
for seminars, speakers, demonstrations, or any of the above. Same thing
with CAP, let them play the host party to other chapters of the same
organization for the weekend. Main thought is to bring in out of towners.

Think of all the seminars at OSH. Those people just don't crawl in a closet
when OSH ends, right Mr. Weir? Hunt up some local experts and ask them if
they'd be interested in speaking. Company reps would also be people to talk
to. I know Columbia flys around doing sales pitches, something like that
would be a welcome break during a Weekend Ground school. I've never been to
it, but that's basically what the Great Lakes Aviation Conference is, who
knows, maybe in a couple years you'd have created the IOW Aviation Seminar
Pig Roast Tupperware Party Symposium.

Almost forgot.... http://www.avweb.com/news/columns/182500-1.html Greg
Gorak, from the Milwaukee area, does CFI Refresher Weekends (fri & sat) at
hotels around the midwest. Maybe you can bring him in.

Jim Burns


"john smith" wrote in message
...
Besides taildragger, how about HP, complex or other endorsement
opportunities over a weekend? Also set up 'Wings weekends' that pilots
could work on the 3 flight hours for the Wings programs with discounts
on a
room and CFI.

1. I agree, a WINGS WEEKEND program is a good draw for one weekend.
2. State maintenance weekend in collaboration with your local FSDO.
Bring in A&P's, A/I's, manufactureres, vendors, FAA, state aviation
officials. Two days for mechs to get recurrent training credit and
update on the latest rules, regs, SB's, etc. One day set aside for
pilots to attend maintenance seminars.
3. State aviation officials/airport managers conference.

Jay Honeck wrote:

Iowa is (unfortunately for our airport, which had commercial service long
before any of them) amply served by commercial service into Cedar Rapids,
Des Moines, and Moline (Quad Cities)...

So, if you cater to customers from overseas, you would have to arrange to pick
them up at one of those airports. Would that be commercial use of Atlas?

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

The odd thing is that the FBO's don't seem to realize that they are
cutting their own throats when they don't recruit new pilots

I've been telling them that very same thing for the last 8 years.

Of course, in that time, we've had three FBOs, so they don't seem to be
"getting it"...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Thanks, Jim. I've printed this one out for Mary and me to peruse. There's
some excellent stuff in here!

BTW -- Your potato harvest didn't cause you to miss much flying this
weekend. Crappy weather!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:zexZe.366651$_o.277188@attbi_s71...
[...]
I've talked to a couple of CFIs, and my favorite shop, and they're
interested in trying it -- but I don't want to waste their money if the
consensus here is that it's a dumb idea...

Combo deals generally: I look closely to see whether I'm really getting a
discount. Many are just marketing schemes to consolidate advertising costs.
So make sure there's something significant in it for the consumer, on the
order of 10-20% off.

As far as the annual thing goes: no, I wouldn't have an unknown shop do my
inspection. As a general rule of thumb, I would limit your combo deals to
things that are valuable only at the immediate moment, rather than having a
potentially on-going effect on the customer's life. An annual inspection in
particular creates the potential for long-term headaches for the customer;
even if you ensure yourself that the shop is reliable, the customer has no
way to know this for sure. Responses to that kind of offer would probably
be limited, IMHO.

Rather than offering an annual inspection, maybe offer something like a free
airplane wash, or an oil change, or something like that.

I don't think you're crazy for considering combo deals, but make sure you
think carefully from the point of view of the customer. Just because YOU
know the deal is a good one, that doesn't mean the customer can be
convinced.

Pete

Crappy weather put the potato harvest on hold until it dries out, so I was
able to escape to the airport. With 400 ft ceilings I couldn't fly, but I
did pull her out and warm her up enough to change the oil. So I got a small
airplane fix to hold me over!

John Smith had a great idea about the GPS classes also. We did one at STE
for the Garmin 430. Lots of pilots don't use 1/2 the features and aren't
really up to speed on the 1/2 that they do use, especially renters.

Jim

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:WAJZe.367674$_o.31107@attbi_s71...
Thanks, Jim. I've printed this one out for Mary and me to peruse.
There's
some excellent stuff in here!

BTW -- Your potato harvest didn't cause you to miss much flying this
weekend. Crappy weather!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Do you have an instructor there that does tail-wheel endorsements? That
would be a good one. You might want to add something wives could do while
the husband is flying. All of us aren't as lucky as you when it comes to
flight interested wives.



"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:zexZe.366651$_o.277188@attbi_s71...
Opinions, please!

(No one on Usenet has any of *those*, right? :-)

We're considering putting together a combo deal with a couple of other
local airport businesses, along the following lines:

1. Come to Iowa City and stay the weekend in one of our aviation themed
jacuzzi suites...
2. While you're here do your BFR with _________, a local CFII...
3. While you're here, have your aircraft annualed by ___________, a local
shop with 40 years experience...
4. Any other suggestions? Tickets to a football game? Dinner at the Old
Capitol Brew Works?

Of course the package price would be very attractive -- much less than
normal.

I've seen these kinds of things for "Overnight IFR Training" and "Weekend
Ground Schools" -- but do they work? Anyone ever done anything like this
before?

Would you feel comfortable having a strange shop annual your plane? (Or
is that actually a selling point, having "new eyes" check things over?)

I've talked to a couple of CFIs, and my favorite shop, and they're
interested in trying it -- but I don't want to waste their money if the
consensus here is that it's a dumb idea...

Thanks!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

I don't think you're crazy for considering combo deals, but make sure you
think carefully from the point of view of the customer. Just because YOU
know the deal is a good one, that doesn't mean the customer can be
convinced.

Yeah, that's always the catch. I've come up with some of the best
deals in the world (in newspapers and at the inn) that flopped
horribly. Although it's often a case of not being able to find the
best advertising venue for the deal.

Another problem we've got is that summers -- the best flying time --
are already full up. Now, would I rather have a hotel full of pilots
rather than a hotel full of weddings? You bet! But everything you do
with pilots is weather-dependent, and how can I make it
"non-cancellable"?

For example, let's say we do an "Aerobatics Weekend" at the inn --
something that would be VERY cool to do. Let's say we get a marvelous
response, and we're sold out. Therefore, no one else can book a night
at the hotel...

....and then it's crap weather for the weekend. No one can fly,
including the aerobatics instructor. Then what? Do I simply write
off any income for the weekend? Or do I charge everyone anyway? Who
would want to pay *that*?

We want to be pilot-friendly, but we can't lose an entire summer
weekend because of weather. Our inn is simply too small to put all of
our eggs in a potentially leaky basket like that.

SO, can we do this kind of thing in the "off-season" when it wouldn't
matter so much? Things are slowing down now, except for Big Ten
football weekends. The weather is still pretty good around here
through the first of November, and then we could build in
"leaf-peeping" flights, too, I suppose? Then, if everyone had to
cancel due to weather, I would only be out "potential" money rather
than "real" money, since we probably wouldn't be sold out anyway.

Just thinking out loud here... What to do, what to do...?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"