Creating an Exponential Airline + Verijet CEO, Richard Kane
In a Nutshell
**Verijet**, led by CEO Richard Kane, revolutionizes short-haul private aviation using AI-optimized Cirrus SF50 Vision Jets for 300 mph door-to-door speeds from 5,400 U.S. airports, slashing carbon emissions by over 1 ton/hour, noise, and costs to $2,750/flight hour (or $700/person for a family of 4) with no fees or memberships. Features include Safe Return autoland, whole-plane parachutes, UV-sterilized cabins refreshed every 30 seconds, and quantum-enhanced routing solving quintillions of possibilities for instant bookings by street address. Launching with 8 jets in the Southeast by January, expanding to Santa Monica and Europe, it targets COVID-wary travelers, business niches like University of Alabama, and intermodal with eVTOL, outcompeting legacy airlines on efficiency, safety, and point-to-point flexibility.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Peter introduces Richard Kane, Chairman and CEO of Verijet holding company, founder of Coastal Aviation, Inc 500 CEO, noted researcher in AI with cornerstone patents in telecom, aerospace, security, synthetic vision optimization. Verijet culminates a decade-long journey in increasing effective door-to-door speed, reducing carbon and noise footprint, opening private aviation, unlocking the fourth wave of high-speed travel borrowed from NASA's 25-year Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS).
Peter discloses he is a board member and investor in Verijet.
Commercial flying averages 75 mph door-to-door due to TSA, driving to big airports, connections. Goal of SATS and Verijet is 300 mph door-to-door using a 500 mph jet.
US has 29 hub airports public knows, 400 with significant use, 5,400 usable by this jet, other 5,000 with <1% traffic. 98% of US population lives within 20 miles of one or more of 5,400 airports (pavement and bathrooms), plus 19,000 grass/dirt strips.
Example: From Santa Monica, LAX is 40 minutes in rush hour +1 hour early; Santa Monica airport is 10 minutes away with no wait.
Verijet descends from telecom routing technology handling 100 million calls/hour (14 billion/month), solving traveling salesman problem, applied to aviation for thousands of jet flights/day. Achieved incredible results saving 200,000 pounds carbon footprint/week for other carriers.
Verijet launches on top: recovers broken planes, AI dispatch (e.g., 1-hour turn rescuing couple whose plane broke), planes have AI to land themselves keeping pilot safe, like built-in flight crew pilot monitors.
Aims to be safest, most efficient airline via aircraft and dispatch/operations systems.
Verijet: New concept in private aviation like Amazon then Uber, for short-haul using latest Cirrus SF50 Vision Jets (proven airframe/engine, safest in class, most delivered business jet 2018, Collier Trophy).
Low operating cost, radical noise reduction, low CO2 (saves >1 ton CO2/hour vs other light jets), perfect for environmentally conscious short-haul traveler.
Premium cabin, 28 seating configurations, UV sterilization between passengers, cabin air refreshed by micro-particle filtration every 30 seconds (COVID safety).
Professional ATP/type-rated pilots trained for customer service.
Safety: Cirrus Airframe Parachute System, Safe Return Emergency Autoland (lands itself if pilot unable).
54% US flights short-haul (≤700 nautical miles); serves thousands local airports with short-field capability, low noise, easy pricing (no cards/membership fees).
Powered by Coastal Aviation Technology's AI-based flight optimization booking (ride-hailing reality). Opens private jet charter to new market.
Customers (e.g., rescued couple from broken Citation) report smoothest, safest flight ever; 100% love experience, request same pilots.
Airlines raising prices amid revenue drops; crossover where Verijet business jets efficient enough to compete.
Moderate fleet light jets: quintillions possible routings; 70-aircraft fleet: 16 quintillion. AI uses hundreds computer cores/virtual supercomputer in Dallas IBM facility for approximate solutions.
Patents check availability in 200 milliseconds (pilot sleep, maintenance, etc.). First to point-click-book, sell vs Delta/United when direct service, ≥2 passengers, price competitive.
AI drops price ~30% via efficiency; jet another 40%; first to pull people off airliners.
Fred Smith: "Richard you're going to do to the airlines what FedEx did to the post office you're going to take the premium passenger the premium packages off them put them on you because you're offering better service direct service and they get home to their families at night"
Introduced to IBM Quantum Computing team; traveling salesman problem classic for quantum. Currently 200ms availability, 5-30min fleet resequence; quantum enables seconds, no dollars left on table, tens/hundreds tons carbon savings. Ran first quantum program in Melbourne facility; 3-year journey.
Peter flown it; simple transition from Cirrus SR22 turbo.
Watched since inception; waited for Gen 2. Carbon fiber (no metal fatigue, lower cycle costs), short hops efficient. Engine FJ33 from cruise missile, efficient down low for short-haul (1/3 to 1/5 operating cost vs heavier jets).
FAA national 135 authority for one engine/one pilot: safer from bird strikes (can't ingest in single), low noise/carbon. Safe Return: passenger lands at button touch.
Parachute: jet slows, shuts engine, positions, then deploys (no difference pilot vs passenger pull). FAA excited, 3 more examiners; Cirrus released video night before meeting.
Safe Return (Garmin/Vision Jet): red roof button, AI takes over, avoids weather/mountains, identifies closest airport, lands, stops, notifies FAA.
Onboard AI: protects from loss-of-control, sees in dark, advanced radar warnings (e.g., wrong runway 30° off, too short; foggy runway traffic; reminds of accidents).
Like two-person crew where one never distracted/hungover.
Seating: 4 adults, two 90lb children, pets, light luggage (weekend); weekdays 3 executives with tables, pull-down conference table, 30-inch TV for movies/PowerPoints (held board meetings).
AI integration: post-landing green check in 1 second, interrogates systems in 1 minute, clears for next flight, monitors every fan blade/component. FAA: best airline in 24 years. Planes AI-monitored/dispatched, pre/post-flight check centrally. Richard exceeded speed 4 seconds, AI ratted to dispatch.
Available now Southeast (Florida, Georgia); 800 nautical miles from Orlando, no reposition charges.
$2,750/hour, charged actual flight time, firm fixed price upfront (data-mined 44,000 Vision Jet flights since 2016: no incidents/safety issues).
No overnight/ extras; ~1/3 cost others, real-time (no phone). Family of 4: ~$700/person business class, takeoff/land when want, point-to-point.
Website flyverijet.com: book by street address/zip/landmark (e.g., Palm Beach to Fort Myers Page Field, 30min flight, board 5min prior, 4 adults/2 kids/light bags/pets; available tomorrow).
Example: Tuscaloosa no commercial service (lost Essential Air Service, Southwest pulled from Birmingham); CEO 3 days roundtrip meetings now, Verijet enables 3 meetings/day home to family. Flew CEO/pres/wives; "you need to fly your teams on these airplanes always and exclusively we've never felt safer".
University of Alabama white-label app; Tuscaloosa building airport extension, base planes/pilots.
Add SR22 piston: $850/hour (~$200/seat 3 seats), vs jet $2,750. Burns 16 gal/hour vs jet 65 gal/hour (jet half speed of sound).
45% students 400-600 miles away; safer than driving 2am.
Electric fleet type: ~$2/hour fuel, no maintenance; looked at Vision Jet decade ago, advising electric companies, decade out ($100-200M certify new airframe).
Democratize private travel, drop price point so no one connects through Hartsfield or O'Hare, always fly Verijet. By first week of January, 8 jets and 1 propeller plane operational for southeast. Next, Santa Monica Airport under threat from shortened runway, noise, carbon. Verijet jet is low noise—two jets flew overhead at Pensacola Air Show, no one heard them on ground. Engine burns four types of biofuel, can reach carbon zero. Santa Monica welcomes no carbon footprint, low noise, short runway capability. Take to Europe: 50 dB quieter than Stage 4 noise requirements, serves noise-sensitive airports worldwide.
Since COVID, more new people signed up in last 30 days than last 10 years. First revenue passenger: mid-90s woman from East Hampton, Long Island to Vero Beach (outside operating zone), traveled with daughter, afraid of COVID. Plane has scrubbed air, UVC sterilized, direct to Vero, no connecting airport. New York Times: 700 infection points commercial, 20-30 private, Verijet manages to zero. Chief Medical Officer Dr. Todd House. Mix: 1/3 COVID-concerned, business from Tuscaloosa (no commercial service), leisure travel. Example: Leesburg, Virginia to East Hampton for golf—tail has T-tube for golf clubs, demo pilots are PGA players. Fly people with large dogs: service dog to actress Diane Keaton in Santa Monica cross-country; on board of New Horizon, replaced her 17-year-old golden retriever. Good third of trips have animals—safer than airliner crate.
COVID took away date-certain business travel, replaced with threefold ASAP requests. AI dispatches in 1-2 hour turn. Flourish in ASAP/flex: "I want beach house anytime next 5 days, least expensive." Carriers dependent on out-and-back business travelers went bankrupt; AI-powered like parent company flourish handling ASAP/flex.
Dropping price point opens private travel to those who couldn't afford it. Inroads in intermodal: LAX to Miami, then Verijet to Naples; customer service grabs bags, brings to jet—love notes, pilot hugs. Bring new people via OTAs like Expedia, Uber. Point-to-point: 3,500 ft runway vs. 5,000 ft. Flew falcon-owner to private runway in mountains north of Napa, 5 min vs. 1.5 hr drive.
JetSuiteX flies metal Phenom, not good for short haul—pressurization causes metal fatigue (Aloha Airlines fuselage peel-off, de Havilland Comet square windows). Verijet: carbon fiber, one engine, cycle costs lower, $600/hr vs. Phenom $1,200/hr. One pilot, carbon fiber, one engine vs. 2+ in metal. Short haul battleground: Phenom can't reach 41,000 ft efficiently, stuck at 18,000 ft burning fuel/noisy on 300-mile trips. Example: Hail storm closed Rapid City, South Dakota runway 45 min; Verijet 7 hr 40 min endurance at 9,000 ft (FJ33 engine low/slow), toured Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Crystal Caverns, still 7 hr left—Phenoms divert. No membership fee, no repositioning fee, simplified pricing: same price anywhere, fixed quoted upfront.
Larger airports like JFK/LAX not off-limits, fly there often. Midway: kept 250 knots alongside airliners, right-angle turn/sliding. Fuel $3/gal higher, waiting in traffic. Example: Esther Dyson (daughter of Freeman Dyson, angel investor) Fort Myers to Orlando—majors took to Orlando International (1 hr from hotel), Verijet to ISM (7 min). Carrie Limousine on ramp, bags direct to limo—she invested. Patent on booking by street address. Panel with NetJets, XO, JetSuite took her wrong; Satavia president signed up. Avoid big airports if possible, but go if demanded.
Point-to-point, on-demand. Offended by big airports like Hartsfield, Gatwick as shopping malls with serpentine paths. Tripling travel speed—double speed switches technology (8 years first car to last horse Manhattan). Usher fourth wave, change travel. Shorting airlines. Intermodal with eVTOL (meet at Abundance360): Santa Monica to downtown LA last 10 miles. Electric aircraft coming (Elon 15 yrs ago at SpaceX designed electric supersonic jet). Verijet AI/quantum computer plugs efficient travel tech, 5 tons carbon/day efficiency.
Wanted suborbital point-to-point (Kane), but SpaceX will do it (2 hr Tokyo). Verijet: closer destinations, regional. Expect longer-range single-engine fleet (1,600 nm), US coverage. Looking at Boom Supersonic bizjet—AI dispatches. Tough to compete at hyper-velocities outside atmosphere. Analogy: faster travel layers—water surface, air (less drag), space (Starship). Hyperloop intermodal.
Patents: Uber cited Verijet on AI dispatch by street address. Uber Air sold to Joby (hardware). Work with Fountainhead Aviation Miami: reserve 2 VTOL/eVTOL spots, 2 jet spots. Downtown Brickell apt to tarmac (1-1.5 hr traffic), Verijet to Tallahassee same day (biodiesel, carbon zero). Chase intermodal. Attend UPC conference, advise 1-2 companies. Certification tough, see who survives. eVTOL: electric vertical takeoff/landing, prop-driven, <150 mph, 10-20 mile legs; Verijet SF50 >half speed of sound at 31,000 ft, 56 gal/hr—4x faster, connects 200-300 miles.
Hybrid electric: Vertiq (Eric Lindberg), flying Prus, radically efficient. Pure battery electric promising. Electric trainers: 95 euros/hr to 3 euros/hr (S-curve). Expect in fleet (3-7 yrs?), better environment, quieter. Track biodiesel, vertical investments (blue biofuels). Jeta energy density hard to beat, but batteries advancing.
Mathematics, computer science, routing phone calls. Mid-80s/early 90s: 7 regional phone companies into National Telecommunications Network vs. AT&T/MCI—long distance now almost free (was $1/min, calling cards, payphones, access codes). Same math/algorithm (traveling salesman problem) for airplanes—more societal/environmental impact vs. phone calls.
Buy $100M airliners, wait year for gate. Year to react/change routes. Palm Beach-NY snowstorm: routing computers crash 24 hrs, fire CEO (irregular ops). Deal 29 hubs; Verijet 5,400 airports, random chaos, irregular ops recovery. IBM team (commercial aviation) couldn't grasp scale. Stuck expensive equipment, oversight. Taxpayer subsidizes Essential Air Service (empty 19-seat turboprops). Replace with on-demand. Verijet 135 ops to airline (121) safety standards—unbeatable.
Pilots wear Oura rings monitoring body temp/readiness score—ground if needed. Molecules microparticle filtering, UV sterilization (30-60 sec cabin scrub), UVC/ozone. Health passports (Bahamas recent test): saliva kits, computer reads; nasal swabs weekly. Flight crews exempt <24 hr stays; passengers handle 14-day quarantine/tests. Temperature screening. Monitor changes (turned around to Canada mid-flight lockdown). Inflight Aridium messaging. Example: Inflight problem on repositioning plane—AI synoptics diagnosed, parts en route before landing at maintenance base.
SR22 (bestselling 14 yrs): parachute, night vision, loss-of-control prevention (autoland coming). Pre-COVID pilot shortage: train 500 SR22 piston pilots to 1,500 hr ATP jet pilots. SR22 + pilots = $800/hr. Use to ferry crew (no hotels/public transport/airliners, no COVID). Network propeller planes: jet breaks, send prop. Three college students share Friday-Sunday: $850/hr plane = $200/seat like Southwest.
Propeller planes are much less costly to operate. People note propeller planes are smaller than Southwest jets, but factoring in not driving from Santa Monica to LAX and waiting an hour at the airport makes them actually faster—hours faster on short hauls.
Next stop is Santa Monica in the May-June time frame, possibly earlier like bringing a service dog to Diane Keaton, but after June. Visit in the Southeast to demonstrate the jet—drop a note. To reach: book via fly.com or call 833-VER (833-837) to book over the phone.
Start with a lot of money—this is a difficult space. Need to really understand the markets and market segments. Verijet cheated by creating the stock market and now trading on the stock market they created. Planes built in late '90s early 2000s are the workforce of the wholesale fleet and break all the time—sometimes break and burst into flames, seen on CNN. AI figures out how to recover those passengers—no one was hurt in that particular one.
Had advantage recovering airplanes breaking 20 or 30 times a week with own craft. Real example: Challenger from Santa Monica to Las Vegas at 19,000 feet burning nine times the carbon of Verijet, making noise with one passenger. Saw it at Santa Monica with 26 ecomm-minded investors, sports stars, celebrities, pop stars when Challenger pulled up. Put that one person on a Vision jet—saves thousands of dollars, better for the environment.
Key advice: Find your advantage in the aviation space. Understand what your advantage is. Lued out—got introduced to president of University of Alabama, watched a game, learned to say Roll Tide. App will say Roll Tide when booking flight. Niche: 50,000 trips, quarter million implements out of Tuscaloosa a year. Find that niche if going into private aviation. Throw in AI—mix AI with anything.
Planes are amazing, beautiful—like inside of a Tesla or Ferrari, gorgeous and safe. Proud of what Richard Kane and team built. For Abundance digital members: Zoom network session tomorrow at 5:00 a.m. Pacific (8:00 a.m. Eastern) or 12:00 noon Pacific (3:00 p.m. Eastern). Meet new members, brainstorm companies, transform industry—it's all about the network. Later this month: live Zoom with Abundance digital members. To step up to A360: email [email protected].
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