New flight subscription app adds cities, new partner

SkyHi, a new entrant in the air travel subscription sphere, added ten cities to its system in December, bringing the total number of destinations served to 49 in the United States, Canada and Europe.

The app, which launched in August, is intended to “bring affordable, spontaneous travel to the masses,” says co-founder and CEO Rama Poola.

Users, currently by invitation-only and numbering fewer than 500, pay a subscription fee of $199 per month, which gives them the option to book as many as five one-way flights within 1,500 miles of their home market at a flat rate of $35 each. Flights can only be booked one week in advance.

SkyHi offers seats on dozens of major and low-cost carriers including Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Frontier Airlines, British Airways, Lufthansa, Ryanair and more.

Poola says SkyHi’s fixed pricing differentiates it from other travel subscription apps such as MyCape, which launched about a year ago.

MyCape uses an auction model, in which travelers bid on flights within the next seven days, and the system confirms and automatically charges the highest bidders 24 hours before departure.

“We want to essentially take pricing out of the equation,” Poola says. “You already know your subscription rate; you already know what you will pay for each route. So the only thing you are thinking about is where you want to go and timing.”

Another subscription attempt was OneGo, which launched in February 2016 and offered as many as four nonstop flights per week starting at $1,500 per month for flights in its “west” region.

It stopped operation shortly after launch, and the website says a new site is in development.

Poola says SkyHi’s relatively low fees are targeted at people ages 22 to 35 who have some disposable income and flexibility in their personal and professional lives. “These people are accustomed to being able to do things on demand,” he says.

Yesterday, SkyHi also announced a partnership with Spot, an online community that provides recommendations on restaurants and experiences in destinations around the world. The company also has partnerships with Ladies Get Paid, Quarters, Flexpat and Black Girls Travel Too.

Poola says SkyHi’s role is primarily filling excess capacity on flights and has yet to hear much directly from airlines about the service, though the company spoke to airlines about its business model prior to launch and “they were all pretty interested in striking direct deals at some point.”