Coalescing his early experiences flying on standby as a child of airline executives with his understanding of challenges facing airlines managing perishable products, and then his engineering and enterprise technology knowledge, Lyle Jover set himself on a mission – to help full-service carriers compete better against budget carriers.
To accomplish that mission, Jover founded MyCape, a simple bidding app meant to help full-service carriers compete better by making space-available flights possible to consumers without causing revenue dilution.
Having a big corporation back your idea, either as a fund investor or a customer, is what all startups dream of, so when Air France came along as a potential launch customer, the team at MyCape would have celebrated and been duly energised.
“Since we began talking with Air France last winter, the energy and innovator’s spirit we have encountered has been striking. It inspired us,” said Jover (pictured left).
But instead of planning celebrations for a big launch, MyCape felt the full force and strength of airline unions.
“A week or two after our biggest client Air France had signed a deal with us, the Union pushed back so hard on our technology, gathered 7,000 signatures and took it to the management. This led to shutting down the project. It was devastating,” said Jover.
“We knew early on there would be some pushback from the unions, but never thought it would be this huge. According to articles that I’ve read, they were able to reach 7,000 signatures in just a few days,” he added.
Air France’s union felt MyCape’s business mission could potentially take away employee standby tickets.
Jover has since penned an open letter to the Air France community to communicate MyCape’s story and the reason behind building the technology.
While the team was disappointed at not having “the honour” of having Air France as a launch customer, it is pushing ahead with two other airline partners that have signed up. It recently went live in Costa Rica with a small airline called Nature Air, and is working to bring Philippine Airlines online in the first quarter of next year.
“We want to focus on these first and make them successful before we expand to others,” said Jover.
What then were some early lessons learnt?
“If you are creating innovations for age-old industries, expect a pushback one way or another and do not underestimate them. At MyCape, we designed our system so that employee benefits would not be compromised. However, I believe, personal perception is something we cannot control,” said Jover.
For now, Jover is keeping a positive perspective on this development.
“This is beyond us and Air France. It’s about unions and how, in the present day, they work with organisations. I believe this is normal if you are disrupting something – just like other innovations out there like Uber and Airbnb,” he said.
The full version of the open letter to Air France can be read here.
