The Utilisation Gap
What good looks like in leased-fleet travel.
Leased and company-operated fleets are under-used, because the seat has no fare to ration who takes it. This is what drives that — and what disciplined, policy-governed allocation can do about it.
40%
Seat utilisation, unmanaged. The industry average for comparable small-fleet operations: bookings are first-come, no-shows carry no cost, and freed seats fly empty.
90%
Seat utilisation, policy-governed. The measured production average under a priority matrix, quotas, booking windows and go-show automation.
50%
Fewer no-shows. Penalty points scaled to departure proximity, reason-aware exceptions, and bans that still let a colleague book on the offender's behalf — converting would-be empty seats into go-shows.
Why utilisation is the number that matters
The cost of a leased aircraft, vessel, or vehicle is committed whether or not anyone is in the seat. Every point of utilisation recovers money already spent.
Because the seat has no fare, money cannot ration demand — the policy has to. The levers that lift utilisation from a 40% baseline to 90% are a priority matrix, quotas, booking windows, penalty points, and go-show automation. The mechanics are covered in no-shows, go-shows, and the cost of empty seats, and the platform that enforces them on the how-it-works page.
Methodology and sourcing
Where the numbers come from
- The 40% unmanaged baseline is the industry average for comparable small-fleet operations — the starting point when nothing rations demand. It sits inside what the FAA reports for that flying: Part 135 commuter carriers averaged a 51% passenger load factor in the year to June 2023, and on-demand multi-engine turboprops and mid-size jets fly 37–43% of seats occupied (FAA, Economic Values, Section 3).
- The 90% figure is measured: the average that policy-governed allocation and go-show automation have sustained in production, across deployments and years.
- Apart from the 40% baseline, the utilisation and no-show figures are measured production outcomes averaged across deployments and years — not any single client's operational data, and an average of that kind cannot be attributed to one operation. No client-attributable utilisation figures are published. The 30,000 passenger journeys a month cited on the homepage is a production count, not an estimate. A passenger journey is one passenger carried on one booked segment: a return trip for one traveller counts as two, a four-passenger booking on one flight counts as four. It covers leased, chartered, and commercial segments across all tenants, averaged over the trailing twelve months; cancelled bookings and no-shows are excluded. Definitions follow the leased and operational travel glossary.
FAQ
Common questions
Why does UnityTrip publish no named customers, and how can its figures be validated?
The numbers are real; the customer is confidential. The 90% figure is a measured production result from energy and resources operations, averaged across deployments and years, not a model or a theoretical case study; the 40% baseline is the industry average for comparable small-fleet flying. UnityTrip does not name customers, because the organisations that run it operate under strict contractual confidentiality and the underlying customer and fleet data stay with them. Two things support the figures without naming the customer. The 40% baseline sits inside what the FAA reports for comparable small-fleet flying: Part 135 commuter carriers averaged a 51% passenger load factor in the year to June 2023, and on-demand multi-engine turboprops and mid-size jets fly 37–43% of seats occupied (FAA, Economic Values, Section 3). One energy operator shows the gain in another form: its fleet halved while demand and traveller satisfaction rose. What is public is the outcome, the methodology, and the benchmark basis; what is private is the customer data, the fleet data, and the validation, which an evaluating organisation can review under a confidentiality agreement during due diligence. Everything that can be checked is listed on one page.
What is a good seat utilisation rate for a leased fleet?
90%. That is what policy-driven allocation (priority, quotas, booking windows) and real-time go-show automation have sustained in production, against 40% for unmanaged leased-fleet operations, the industry average for comparable small-fleet flying. Seat utilisation is the share of available seats actually used on flown departures.
How much can no-shows be reduced on company-operated transport?
By half in practice. The mechanics that achieve it: penalty points scaled to how close to departure the no-show or cancellation occurs, reason-aware exceptions, bans that still allow a colleague to book on the offender's behalf, and go-show automation that fills the freed seat rather than flying it empty.
Why do our charter flights leave with empty seats while staff say they cannot get a seat?
Both symptoms have one cause: the seat has no fare, so nothing rations demand. Bookings are first-come, which typically strands part of the rotation crew the flight exists for; a no-show costs the traveller nothing; and a batch system cannot fill a seat freed minutes before departure. A priority matrix, quotas, booking windows, penalty points scaled to departure proximity, and go-show automation lift utilisation from a 40% industry average to 90% and cut no-shows by half. The mechanics are set out in no-shows, go-shows, and the cost of empty seats.
How should finance put a cost on an empty seat on transport we lease?
Start from the fact the spend report hides: the cost of a leased aircraft, vessel, or vehicle is committed whether or not anyone is in the seat, so the seat is not free, it is already paid for, and a report that values it at zero is reporting the fare, not the cost. The measure that carries that cost is seat utilisation, the share of available seats actually used on flown departures. Every point of utilisation recovers money already spent, and the distance between an unmanaged 40% and a policy-governed 90% is committed cost flying empty. That gap, not a notional fare, is the number finance can report. How the seat is treated when a journey posts to the ledger is answered on the SAP S/4HANA page.
Can we get a cost per seat or per passenger on our own aircraft?
Yes, once two records exist. The contract with the operator gives the cost: the fixed costs, and the hours flown and the variable costs for crew and consumables per aircraft, with flight logs as the agreed record for accounts payable. The schedule and check-in give the travel: who flew, on which departure, for which reason, and against which cost centre. Together they can be sliced into cost per seat, cost per passenger, and cost per cost centre, and the same figures show what each point of utilisation is worth. One caution: the result is easily skewed when the aircraft is reserved for a reason outside the normal rotation, such as a medevac, an engineering team sent to a plant outage, or an executive's private charter. The organisation may exclude those flights from the cost per seat, or keep the figure internal; the system does not judge, it accommodates the choice. Modelling those reasons, so the figures can be cut by them, is part of what UnityTrip sets out to provide. Perfection is not the aim. The point is to balance the operational and the financial for outcomes that are imperfect and better, with the travellers and the support staff as the measure.
Move your own numbers
The gap between 40% and 90% is policy, not luck. Start with the rules that allocate your seats.