Our Vision Statement... Our Why
ELEVAIR is a Panama-based seaplane airline that is presently completing final operational certification with government authorities. We will utilize modern turbo-prop amphibious Cessna Caravan aircraft to fly our customers to island, coastal and ocean bay resorts, indigenous communities and locations for touristic and other activities. Our aircraft are commanded by experienced seaplane pilots with international experience.
We believe in growing our business as one that creates positive economic, cultural and environmental impact in a profitable manner.
Our key values are
- Enabling sustainable tourism in remote (maritime) communities through seaplane access and empowering these communities through new economic activities.
- Projects, program and activities that support environmental responsibility and curated conservation activities
- Providing memorable, bespoke curated travellers’ experiences with opportunity to takes these into personal transformative experiences
- An unwavering focus on safety and end-to-end detail of the total customer experience
1. Enabling Sustainable Tourism & Community Empowerment
We believe Seaplane transport enables tourists and travellers to access to coastal, island and inland water-based communities and activities that are not typically readily accessible without long and sometimes complex travel methods. Some of these locations and communities presently see no touristic activities.
Our founders have experienced first-hand the reality of how seaplane access enables sustainable tourism, We have seen this in many regions including Canada, Fiji Islands, Maldives Islands, Vietnam and the Philippines.
With new seaplane access to their communities, indigenous peoples can assist in development and ongoing operations of sustainable touristic activities such as wildlife viewing, conservation programs, sporting activities such as SCUBA, SUP and kayak touring as well as cultural engagement tours.
These activities bring economic development where there may be none before. Seaplane access to remote areas also helps facilitate education and medical community programs.
2. Environmental Responsibility
We are committed to sustainability of the environment we operate within. Our goal is that our touristic activities we support have zero environmental impact, we leave nothing behind but a footprint in the sand. We recognize that responsible seaplane operations do not disturb wildlife or marine habitat and operating on water displaces the significant environmental impact from runway construction and maintenance in remote areas. We recognize that seaplanes burn fuel and we are committed to accountable programs for carbon neutral operations.
3. Supporting Conservation Activities
We support conservation activities by providing research personnel and institution access to areas that are typically difficult to access for conservation research and program execution. In collaboration with biologists and research institutions we will provide unique and curated conservation experiences to travellers that have a positive impact. An example of this would be a day at Isla Escudo de Veraguas with a biologist as part of a conservation program for the critically endangered Three-Toed Pygmy Sloth that is only found on this small island in the Caribbean.
4. Providing an Opportunity for Traveller Transformative Experience
We recognize that travellers no longer want just a beach or pool experience on their vacation. They desire memorable experiences that they can share with their friends and peers through social media. A growing segment of travellers desire transformative, life changing experiences that help them grow and more deeply engage with the world, as well as proving a new perspective of the world. They desire the improved self that results from these experiences.
Working with experienced guides we will offer curated experiences such as a guided kayak journey up a river tributary in the remote Darien gap. Or living within an indigenous village on a remote tropical island to learn and hands-on experience of daily life.
5. Embracing Technology
We embrace the adoption of existing and new smart technologies to enable our customers and our enterprise. We recognize that customer focused mobile apps such as booking and flight crowd-sourcing enhance our total customer experiences. Our enterprise will be early adopters of cloud-based-technologies and applications. We will be disruptors in our industry in Panama.
6. Accountability
We recognize that accountability to our values and objectives is critical to retain our Customers’ perception of our authenticity.
To hold ourselves accountable we commit to become the first tourism segment Certified B Corporation in Panama before the first year of operations. B Corporations are certified by an independent body and are a new kind of business that balances purpose and profit. They are legally required to consider the impact of their decisions on their workers, customers, suppliers, community, and the environment.
As a fundamental frame of reference to assure accountability for responsible and sustainable tourism we will follow the United Nations World Tourism Organization’s “Global Code of Ethics for Tourism” This is a comprehensive set of principles designed to players in tourism development and aims to help maximise the tourism benefits while minimising potentially negative impact on the environment, cultural heritage and societies across the globe.
We are committed to provide an Annual Accountability Report to document out compliance to these two guidelines.
7. Strategic Partnerships
We believe that strategic partnerships with a foundation of mutual benefits are key to our growth and realizing our values. We will collaborate with other companies, organizations and individuals in the tourism industry that share our values for sustainable tourism and empowerment of communities through economic growth. We will work closely with government agencies, non-profit organizations, research and conservation agencies to advance our mutual agendas.
8. Profitability
Profitability is essential for our business to survive and grow, but not at the sacrifice of our goals and objectives. Tourism is the largest single industry in the world ($7 Trillion) and continues to grow at over 5% per year. Seaplane operations are a $1 Billion global market and consistently profitable.
Sustainable tourism is critical allow our children to experience the same or better tourism experiences as we have today. Experiential tourism is a profitable segment and sustainable experiential touristic activities economically empowers individuals and communities to become self sufficient in developing and supporting their own offerings and support of conservation practices.
9. Safety & Detail of Our Customer Experience
We will have an unwavering focus on the safety of our operation and our clients and staff. We are committed to the rigor of focus on quality of execution and will formally adopt ISO Quality Standards and documented Safety Management Systems.