Addison Schonland

Addison Schonland is the founder and partner of AirInsight, a boutique commercial aerospace consulting firm. Since its creation the firm has developed a significant following, and has become influential within the industry, as its partners are frequently quoted in trade press. Prior to staring AirInsight, Addison worked as a consultant for various aerospace focused firms, including PA Consulting, Allegiant Systems, AvIntel and T2-Impact. Dr. Schonland’s initial interest in aerospace dates back to 1987, when he worked on the US Department of Commerce’s Survey of International Air Travelers. This project exposed Dr. Schonland to the airline and aviation world and he never looked back. This project required regular interaction with 75 international airlines, McDonnell Douglas, Boeing and Airbus. It was the largest airline survey in its time. In 2008 Dr. Schonland started his doctorate in business administration with a focus in customer satisfaction. Completing this degree dovetailed with the emergence of social media and its usefulness as a customer satisfaction tool as well as a method of acquiring feedback. Dr. Schonland developed a real-time customer feedback system for a premier limo service and developed the reporting system. While working in travel and aerospace, an interest in large databases led to developing an online insurance claim system and an airline security system that validated airline passenger bookings immediately after 9/11. The latter system ran its validation within six seconds of a PNR being generated. Dr. Schonland has degrees from the University of Cape Town and Rushmore University. Most recently he completed courses at University of Maryland, College Park (Surviving Disruptive Technologies) and at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Competitive Strategy).