SkyHi is a new mobile app that simplifies booking a flight for a low fixed price.
By: Heather Newgen | Twitter: @hnvoluntourist
Looking to access cheap airfare without spending hours looking for the best deal? SkyHi might be your answer. For $199 a month, members can book up a five flights a month, but no more than 10 days before the departure date. However there’s a catch: There are no round trip tickets and for a reason, which you can read below. And flights up to 1000 miles will cost you an additional $35; 1000 to 2000 miles is $75; and 2000 to 3000 miles will be an extra $120 on top of the monthly $199.00 fee. Currently there are 73 departure cities and 2,652 routes in North America and Europe. If you want to cancel and rejoin, no problem. You can do so for $99.00. You can also freeze your account while you’re not using it, but you’ll still pay $35.00 a month.
Co-founder Rama Poola further explains how SkyHi works and what the advantages are for travelers.
Skyhy Co-Founder Rama Poola
The Voluntourist: I’ve been doing a lot of research on SkyHi and I think it’s a great idea. My biggest takeaway was that you were kind of stuck in this 9 to 5 job and that wasn’t where you really wanted to be, so you came up with the concept for SkyHi that really allows people like yourself to have this nomadic lifestyle. Why is that important to you to be able to allow others to have that?
Rama Poola: Great question. I think everyone needs to experience new places all the time. For years I had vacation time and I planned these trips I went on. To me a trip is a lifestyle capital where I can be in Chicago or Miami and experience new people and new cultures and get reinvigorated about whether I’m doing work or whether I’m pursuing creative outlets. I just think the world needs to be more fluid. That’s where I think people need to have those experiences constantly in order to grow and maybe that because I have those all the time and I grow because of it and I want people to have that.
The Voluntourist: From what I understand about SkyHi, round-trip tickets are not offered. Can you explain why not?
Poola: Yes, so they are only one-way tickets and you can claim five tickets a month. We wanted to make sure people aren’t thinking about things as much because there is excitement in the fact that you can go somewhere, spend time there, and not feel confined if you have a ticket going back in two days…If they are out there, then they can make a choice if they want to stay a couple days or maybe go elsewhere. I feel like more people have the flexibility to do that now. I want people to feel that the travel is going to change them. It is our biggest challenge right now, potentially reeducating people to feel and believe that travel can be this easy and this will improve their lives.
The Voluntourist: Break it down for me a little bit. It is $199 a month and then during that month you can get up to 5 one-way tickets to go 1,500 miles between each city.
Poola: Correct. It is 1,500 miles. From LA, you can get to Vancouver, Denver, Salt Lake City, Austin, Dallas, about half way across the country.
The Voluntourist: Do you plan on expanding that?
Poola: We are thinking about different pricing tiers for different mileage radius; at some point a 3,000-mile radius to get people across the country, but it will cost them more.
The Voluntourist: A couple things that could be potential challenges for SkyHi are that you cannot book two one-way tickets at the same time, so you have to go on your current flight and then you can book immediately after you land. Is that correct?
Poola: Correct. As soon as the flight lands, you can book another ticket. That could cause some anxiety for some, but for others, it is kind of exciting. You open up the app and you can see any flight that we can put you on in the upcoming ten days. It is possible that there may not be one out the next day, but there will likely be one two days after. People that have used it are less anxious about it because they usually find their flight home if they need to go home. If not, they just stay an extra day or two. You can also switch your location in the app before you book that first flight to see what flights are coming back.
The Voluntourist: Why did you decide to set it up this way where you can book two one-way tickets at the same time?
Poola: It breaks people’s habit of thinking about round trips. We don’t want people to make their decisions until they’ve landed.
The Voluntourist: When you are talking to people and asking them if they can work anywhere, how are they are able to have such flexibility in their schedule?
Poola: A lot of them are freelancers. I worked for a tech company for many years and for a lot of the tech companies now, it doesn’t matter if you work from home or from a café.
The Voluntourist: A lot of people don’t have that mindset, so are you hoping something like this can change that?
Poola: Yes, I do hope it will change it and I do hope it will have people ask for what they or need out of their jobs. I do hope that this empowers people to ask for more flexibility.
The Voluntourist: Who is SkyHi for? Who are you trying to target?
Poola: People that really just want to have experiences, for people that want to live free lives, and for people that have flexible jobs. We have had small business owners who are getting value out of this. You can meet a client face to face as opposed to a video call. That changes your business.
The Voluntourist: What has the feedback been from those who have used SkyHi?
Poola: The one-click booking experience is game changing for many of them. That saves people a lot of time.
The Voluntourist: I like the set pricing aspect of it because I’m always online searching for the cheapest flight possible and this saves so much time. People can use their frequent flyer miles because it is most airlines that are participating, right?
Poola: Correct, I know some airlines don’t honor miles if you book on a third party, but most will do it for you.
The Voluntourist: You said you came up with the idea on a flight, what sparked the idea?
Poola: I was in Berlin getting ready to fly back to New York. I was at the airport and there were backpackers waiting around for a ticket, they didn’t have a ticket to anywhere, waiting for something to fall under 50 euros. They ended up getting a plane to Lisbon. I got on my plane back home and it was pretty empty. I thought to myself, would they have paid $100 to New York City and would that have helped this airplane be more full, and in turn, help the airline? It was on that airplane that drew out SkiHi.
The Voluntourist: Can anyone become a SkyHi member as long as they can pay the $199?
Poola: Currently, it is invite only.
The Voluntourist: Why did you decide on invite-only for now?
Poola: We wanted to make sure we were enabling the right people to travel. We actually have one -on- one conversations with customers. We also wanted to make sure we serviced the cities that people are living in. We don’t want people to get stuck.
For more information visit www.flyskyhi.com