I’ve been reading a lot about product positioning recently and came across an article about how grocery stores position their store-brand products relative to name brand alternatives. Formulas are often largely consistent, but off-brand alternatives are offered at a meaningfully lower price, and the only real question is whether the shopper believes the name on the box is worth the premium. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it absolutely isn’t. Either way, the grocery store intentionally draws you into (the) comparison.
There’s a version of that conversation in private aviation. I don’t see it acknowledged often (or addressed well), but I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.
Plainly, the largest fractional and jet card operators in the country deliver an excellent product. I’m not going to pretend otherwise. They have massive fleets, global reach, and decades of strong operational history. For certain customers, that footprint matters. If you’re doing 400+ hours a year, need to land in Reykjavik on short notice, or need a 24-hour callout consistently, they’re great.
But that customer is not most customers, and that’s what we (the royal “we”) seem to forget.
Most of our clients fly 25 to 150 hours a year. They depart regionally. They fly primarily domestically. They have consistent routes. They want a clean, safe, professional experience and a partner who picks up the phone. For that customer, the large operators deliver a lot of features that aren’t needed……but still paid for. Silverhawk delivers 90% of the service at roughly 70% of the cost.
That 20% gap is the conversation nobody wants to have. That’s value.
The 10% you don’t get? Most of our clients couldn’t point to it in a lineup. It’s things like coast-to-coast fleet redundancy, international routing infrastructure, and other program features engineered for the ultra-high-utilization customer. Real, legitimate stuff, sure. Maybe worth paying for……if you need it…..often.
The problem is that the pricing doesn’t separate those features out. Everyone pays for all of it. Whether they use all of it or not. Which means the customer flying Lincoln to Dallas twice a month is quietly subsidizing the infrastructure that serves a completely different traveler. That’s not a knock on the operators. It’s just the math.
What we’ve built at Silverhawk is a program for people who want value. Real value. Quantifiable value. You get the aircraft, the crew, the experience, the reliability, and the relationship. You get what you want and need without any of the fluff.
If you’re curious whether you fall into that category, I’m always happy to have a quick conversation about it.
Mark
P.S. there is also a ton of interesting thought about the layout (and physical product positioning, not marketing positioning) of grocery stores influencing customer buying behaviors. That has less to do with the kind of positioning I do, but fascinating nonetheless.
