Private aviation

Kenn Ricci's complaint about private equity in the FBO business is really a complaint about price. When a ground handler that once sold for about six times EBITDA now trades at 15 to 20 times, the buyer has to find more money from the same ramp, and that money comes from aircraft owners and charter clients. The fees we argue about at every busy airport are, in large part, the repayment schedule on those purchase prices.

Signature Aviation's decision to rein in special-event fees tells me the problem in private aviation pricing was never only the size of the charge. It was the surprise. A client will pay a premium for the Super Bowl if they know it before they book. What breaks trust is a bill that shows up after the hotel and the flight are already locked in, and Signature has now admitted as much.

Jet Linx has signed more than a dozen new base partners since relaunching the program last December, and Executive Chairman Jamie Walker told Private Jet Card Comparisons at NBAA's convention in Las Vegas that he expects around 12 more deals before year end. Before Covid, the program worked much like a local franchise. Jet Linx rolled those older local interests into the parent company, and new partners, typically high-net-worth individuals active in their home markets, now invest only in the main company while acting as its local ambassadors. The operator has 22 locations, was ranked the 8th-largest U.S. private jet operator by charter and fractional hours in 2025, and says a West Coast push is still being finalized.

Milwaukee-based Jet Out has completed its fleet agreement with Textron Aviation for 17 Cessna Citation CJ4 Gen2 light jets, 15 of which are already in service, with an average age under three years. Speaking at NBAA's convention in Las Vegas, CEO Matt Crivello and President Joe Wild said the company will keep selling co-leases and co-ownership by travel days rather than by hours. The entry point is a 10-day co-lease at $127,000, plus $2,300 per flight hour including fuel, and Crivello equates a 20-day lease to a 1/16th fractional share. Its bases now include Milwaukee, Miami, Scottsdale and Fort Worth.

McKinsey's new report on business aviation, published October 19, puts numbers on a shift many of us have felt for years. Business jet departures hit a record 3.9 million in 2025, and total flight hours were up 37% from 2019. In the US, leisure airfields accounted for 78% of the 417,000 added departures since 2019, with places like Witham Field, Naples and Scottsdale growing far faster than Teterboro. Meanwhile, deliveries reached only 842 jets in 2025, about 65% of the 2008 peak, and the fleet is growing mainly because owners are retiring fewer aircraft.

STA Jets, the Santa Ana charter operator, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire International Jet Aviation Services, a Part 135 charter, aircraft management and sales company at Denver's Centennial Airport. International Jet was founded in California in 1979, moved to Denver a year later and flies a 12-aircraft charter fleet, from King Air turboprops up to a Gulfstream G550, out of a 37,000 square foot facility. STA Jets, which operates mostly Gulfstreams, already has bases in Van Nuys, San Jose, New York and Fort Lauderdale. Price and closing date were not disclosed.

NetJets said on October 12 that it will build three new exclusive-use facilities in the US, at Dallas Love Field, Washington Dulles and Rifle Garfield County Airport in Colorado, and move its West Palm Beach terminal into a larger space. The Dallas complex, developed with Signature Aviation, will cover nearly 114,000 square feet and is due to open in late 2028, after flight activity at Love Field rose more than 25% since 2022. At Dulles, one of its top five destinations, work starts in early 2027 on more than 14,000 square feet of NetJets-only space. Rifle gets a 6,000 square foot terminal by early 2027, and West Palm Beach grows from 10,000 to 15,000 square feet.

ACC Aviation's 2026 charter report names taxation as the biggest cost driver this year, from France's levy on solo passengers to higher UK air passenger duty. Jet fuel got cheaper in 2025, but Europe's sustainable fuel mandate ate much of the saving, and airports such as Schiphol and Geneva are weighing caps on private flights.