Hi Paul, tell us a little about Flapper

Well, we’re a digital broker based in Brazil. We use Avinode especially to source aircraft outside of our core market of Brazil, also act as marketing agents for four air taxi operators in Avinode.

We’ve been an Avinode customer for two years and started using Paynode just three months ago. Straight away we’ve seen the positive impact it has on many aspects of our business, not just payments.

Is it fair to say that Paynode has made life easier?

Absolutely. One of the big problems it solves for us is dealing with payments in multiple currencies.

Customers in the US or Europe are from a mono-currency culture, but we don’t have that luxury in Latin America. Although Flapper has a US bank account and the primary currency for private flights is dollars, there are multiple currencies to deal with in the region. And that’s before you consider our other customers – both operators and end-users – all around the world.

With so many currencies in use, and conversion rates to think about, things can get complicated. It’s here where Paynode really streamlines the process and makes it painless.

We also love the credit card charge feature in Paynode. Here in Brazil, we tend to pay by bank transfer because of issues around fraud. With brokers in Europe preferring to pay by credit card, the feature lets us do that instantly.

That increased speed of payment must be crucial to you

For sure. As an industry we’ve been seeing a reduction in the time between requests and actual flight operations. In the past, the average was maybe six days, and that’s now down to three or even two days. People are not planning too far ahead, and while that’s understandable given the pandemic, it makes it really difficult to manage payment in such a short time.

With Paynode making this fast turnaround possible, it’s the perfect solution for our time. It really is the one-stop-shop for payments in private aviation today.

How quickly were you able to get up and running with Paynode?

Really quickly, actually. The support and training we’ve received has been outstanding. We’ve been really looked after, from the onboarding process and beyond. My team, to be fluent with a new tool, may typically require two or three training sessions because it’s a complex market we work in. But with Paynode, we literally had training on the Tuesday and on the Wednesday, we closed our first flight with a client from Italy. My team just remembered exactly how to use Paynode, so that’s testimony to how intuitive the system is and the quality of the onboarding.

And finally, how do you think Paynode is perceived in the sector?

Speaking from my own experience – and that of Flapper – I would say that Paynode is like a stamp of quality for many foreign customers who may not have heard of us. In our business, trust counts for a lot, and that’s part of the reason we joined Paynode.

A customer in Australia might see that we’re based out in Brazil, and when they see that we’re a Paynode customer, that gives us credibility. I think it’s a real brand boost.