Travel

The Brazilian app that wants to make business aviation something popular is coming to Mexico

According to AviationPros, the company evaluates the size of the Mexican market to be of around 700 million dollars

Flapper's CEO Paul Malicki. Photo: Flapper.

09.Mar.2020 15:27 BRT
UPDATED 13.Mar.2020 14:04 BRT

Founded in 2016, Flapper positions itself more like a “boutique airline” than an “Executive Aviation Uber”;
In order to do so, it sells seats on air taxi planes on pre-programmed routes and intermediates the charter of planes to any destination in Brazil and even to another country.

After three years of operation and 20,000 paid users, Flapper, a Brazilian app that connects passengers and air taxi companies, is coming to Mexico. According to the AviationPros, this will happen in the next quarter.

“Mexican market is attractive for us for a number of reasons, including large domestic fleet, proximity to the US and an existence of a private aviation hub in Toluca Airport,” said Flapper’s CEO Paul Malicki to the website.

Founded in 2016, Flapper positions itself more like a “boutique airline” than an “Executive Aviation Uber”. In order to do so, it sells seats on air taxi planes on pre-programmed routes and intermediates the charter of planes to any destination in Brazil and even to another country.

The startup was welcomed by ACE accelerator and received an investment of BRL 3 million from Confrapar and Travel Capitalist Ventures funds. In October last year, it beat Pitch @ NBAA at the world’s largest business aviation event that took place in Las Vegas, United States.

“Our intention is to turn private aviation into the mainstream travel option and increase the size of the existing market,” Malicki told AviationPros. More than one third of Flapper’s customers in Brazil never flew private before, i.e. there’s a lot of room to grow.

According to AviationPros, the app is yet to be localized to Spanish language and the local currency. The Brazilian startup also told the website that it already registered its first 10 air taxi operators and is in advance discussions with the Mexican investors who will finance its expansion. It evaluates the size of the market to be of around 700 million dollars.

Last year, Malicki said to LABS that in November Flapper would have its first month of break-even. “It is a profitable business. The prospect of growth is very ambitious. Today we have 20,000 paid users with the potential to reach 2 million people who can pay per seat in business aviation. We are still in the beginning,” he told LABS at the time.