Ivan Jakovac, Jung Sky's Head of Sales: "We will end the year with more than 80,000 requests via Avinode"

Following upon our end-of-the-year interviews with Matija and Adam, we continue with our Head of Sales Ivan Jakovac reflecting on the past year and looking towards the time ahead. 

Three words you would use to describe the period after you assumed the Head of Sales role this June?

The word “challenge” would be the first, on a professional, but also personal level because the expectations around our sales department are always very high, both from the management and from our colleagues. One of the key challenges was to continue the proven success record of our department as well as maintain the highest standards in terms of our communication and approach towards the clients. In the same time, the challenge was to try and find some details and nuances that would improve those standards even more. Also, one of the more important challenges for me personally was to improve the cohesion and understanding within the sales team, and then the mutual cooperation of all teams within the company, because our results depend on it very much.

The second word would be the “responsibility” that comes with this role, because the Head of Sales is a person directly affecting the financial sustainability of the company, as well as plans and projections for future operations and projects. The scope of that responsibility and the tasks that come with it is considerable, from daily operational activities, such as arranging and organizing flights, all the way to the monitoring and supervision of things such as flight billing, client relations, etc.

The third word would be “recognition”. I put it at the end although I admit that it might have been the first thing that came to mind. I felt incredibly honoured when the company's management offered me the position, and I am definitely happy that my work and success-orientated approach were recognized. This is really a great team we have here, a lot of plans are in the making and I look forward to contributing as the Head of Sales.

Most Jung Sky flights are contracted by private jet brokers through the Avinode platform. Can you tell us how many inquiries you received during 11 months of this year?

From 1^st of January to the end of November, we received a total of 76,441 inquiries, and the estimate is that we will end the year with more than 80,000 inquiries through Avinode alone. We also receive some inquiries through other platforms like Return Jet and Aviapages, and some people reach us directly via e-mail, the contact and the booking form on our website, etc. I do not have the exact number of inquiries outside Avinode at the moment, but it's certainly not a negligible amount. As far as Avinode is concerned, the record year was 2022 with a total of 97,983 inquiries.

How do you manage to reply to every single inquiry?

To be honest, I don't know :) Sometimes I have the impression we have cloned ourselves multiple times. All kidding aside, we have a great sales team, we have a lot of sales experience, we know aviation which is really, really important, and - with the help of our Ops and the pilots themselves, we manage to keep up with the trends and everything else related to our flight operations. We are very focused on setting up and optimizing all the processes on Avinode down to smallest details, and daily monitoring of prices and market trends allows us to always provide brokers with a quick, accurate and constructive reply to their flight inquiry. Also, certain computer tools enable us to have a shorter response time.

Which month of 2023 was the best so far?

August, definitely, with a total of 11,315 inquiries. The demand for private jet flights is always at its peak during July and August, although, two years ago - we experienced the highest number of inquiries in September (10,904). But last year July was again the strongest with more than 19,000 inquiries.

Your expectations from January and February 2024?

Well, the sales team will catch a very small break in terms of manoeuvering so many requests because during winter months the demand always decreases to some extent. But only to “some” extent, nothing more than that. I have no doubt our jets will be in the air very often because the numbers are still high and I estimate about 5 thousand inquiries per month. Furthermore, the demand will expectedly be dominated by ski destinations such as Chambery, Innsbruck, & Samedan which gives me the opportunity to emphasize something for all the brokers reading this, because they always ask us about it: Yes, Jung Sky pilots are trained to make landings on the before mentioned airports :)