Project completed, 2012–2016
A service for booking business jets: flights are put together right on a calendar, flight time is calculated at once, and the aircraft class and models are picked next to it. It grew into a mobile version, a platform for brokers and an international version, Charters Luxury.
Anywayjet is a Moscow company that sells private jet flights. Such a flight is usually booked through a broker: a call, emails, waiting for options. The client wanted customers to put the trip together themselves — dates, airports, times, passengers and aircraft class — and get a choice of aircraft from operators' fleets, while the broker gets a ready request with all the data.
In 2014 Charters Luxury was launched with the founder of Anywayjet among its owners: a business jet booking platform for Europe and Russia in English and Russian. We ran the IT side of both projects: the websites, the mobile version, the shared API, the link to the company's ERP system and a tool for brokers.
A booking starts with a date: the customer picks a day on the calendar, next to it are three steps of instructions and the “Search” button. Below, a short story of how the service works and why it beats calling a broker.
The first step of a booking is right on the home page, with no separate form.
A click on a day opens a “From — To” window with airport suggestions and a departure time picker. The flight lands on the calendar, and its card appears on the right: airports with codes, departure, arrival, flight time and passengers. A return trip or a chain of several cities is built the same way. Under the calendar are the light, midsize and heavy classes and airliners: each opens a list of models to tick, plus a non-stop option.
The customer sees the whole trip before sending a request.
43 models in four classes. Each row shows a photo, the maker, class, passengers, baggage volume and the year the model entered service; a click opens a description, cabin size, range, speed, ceiling and exterior and cabin photos.
Customers understand the classes before booking and choose a model knowingly.
First we mapped out the app scenario step by step, from search to the personal account, then built a web app for phones: a six-section menu, a route with airports, date and passengers, a quick order by class and maker and a detailed one with specific aircraft and prices.
A flight can be ordered from a phone, on the same data as on the website.
A calendar with month and time wheels, a catalogue with search and filters, an order summary with the chosen aircraft, a personal account with active and past orders. They did not make it into the build.
The app was thought through end to end, down to the personal account.
For the international launch we designed the system as a whole: private and corporate customers and concierge services book through the website, the personal account or the app, brokers through their own app, airlines feed their fleet, aircraft positions and empty legs into the ERP, partners receive empty leg data, and transfers, catering and other services are added to a flight. The websites, apps and ERP share one exchange scheme, and a new sales channel plugs into it instead of being built from scratch.
A website in English and Russian under the motto “The Art of Business Aviation”: booking a jet from the first screen, the service's advantages, concierge service, events on board, private jet holidays, partners and a newsletter.
The project got a showcase for customers abroad.
“Request a jet”: from and to with airport suggestions, date, time and passengers; “Get a quote”: contact details for the offer; “Pay & fly”. In the 2014 version the third step let the customer choose classes, makers and specific aircraft with photos; in 2016 the request was cut down to the route and contacts.
A flight request takes one row of the form.
On “Search” the site asks the company's ERP system for aircraft that fit the route and the chosen classes and shows them with photos and home bases. The customer can sign up along the way, and the request with the customer's details goes to the ERP and to a broker by email.
The broker gets a request with the route, times, passengers and chosen aircraft, with no back-and-forth.
The new version was built on Laravel: the website and the mobile app work through one API with token authorisation, exchange with the ERP and email runs through a queue, newsletter sign-ups go to Mailchimp, and aircraft data is opened by access level.
The website, the app and the ERP work with the same aircraft, order and customer data.
An internal tool from 2015: a broker keeps customers and builds a commercial offer for them — the route, aircraft to choose from with photos and specifications, the price, what is and isn't included — under their own company's logo. The offer goes to the customer as a PDF, by email or as a link by SMS. Aircraft and airport directories sync with the ERP, aircraft photos are pulled from Avinode.
An offer is assembled from the aircraft and services database instead of by hand in a document.
anywayjet.ru is PHP on Kohana with a FullCalendar calendar and a Google Maps map; aircraft, customers and requests live in the company's ERP system on OpenERP, exchanged over XML-RPC. From 2014 the base is Laravel: one API for the Charters Luxury website and the mobile web app on Backbone.js, with exchange with the ERP and email through a Beanstalkd queue. The broker's assistant is Laravel 5, producing PDF offers with wkhtmltopdf.
Scale: 391 commits in two repositories, 38 website releases, a mobile app, 13 screen mock-ups, scenario and platform schemes.
The customer puts together the route, times and aircraft class, and the broker gets a request with all the data.
The Russian and international websites, the app and the broker's tool work with one aircraft database in the ERP.
The scheme tied together customers, brokers, airlines and partners, and the website, the app and the API were built on it.
43 models with specifications and photos help pick an aircraft class before booking.
A broker assembles a commercial offer from the aircraft and services directories and sends it as a PDF, by email or by SMS.
Project completed. We worked on it in 2012–2016. anywayjet.ru ran from October 2012, and the web archive still finds it in autumn 2016; chartersluxury.com in our version ran from July 2014 to 2016. The mobile version and the broker's assistant reached working builds; we found no trace of their public launch.
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