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We begin locally in Florida. None of these are in any chronological order, just what we decided to write about for this first article.

Here are the first 3 for our series:

• Presidential Aviation
• PrismJet
• DuPage Aerospace

With our travels all over Florida somehow, we never came across this company despite it being at both the Opa-Locka and Fort Lauderdale Executive airports. The company is Presidential Aviation. And this is not a charter broker but a full Part 135 operator with a bunch of aircraft.

Jorge spoke with Yoharner Echemendia, who is the Chief Operating Officer and Director of Charter Operations. First off, he was amazed that we had not heard of them as we have been in the aviation marketing business for 45 years and they have been around for quite a while as well.

His first comment was, “I need to fire my marketing people”.

Different than quite a few Part 135 operators we spoke to, their charter business is mostly wholesale. They operate a fairly large fleet of aircraft ranging from prop to heavy jets. We definitely don’t see a lot of that either. Their aircraft are located in hangar space in FL, CA, PA NC and OH. The other surprising part was they return their flights to base, and don’t float aircraft.

Back to their marketing, he said his Google Ads were performing well. And like many other companies, they rely on word of mouth. He also said that they had never done any hangar events to promote their own business. Jorge explained it was something that we have actually helped companies do events with great success.

Here again, we’re surprised how many companies are not using some really effective marketing tools.

Now onto Arizona and PrismJet. This is a new company established in 2024. We spoke to the Sales Manager, who asked us not to use his name. He said that they are running at capacity.

This is a company who does aircraft management and maintenance. They are a Part 135 operator but utilize the excess capacity of the managed aircraft as their charter fleet. They too, do not float aircraft. Here that makes sense, since these are privately owned aircraft where the owners would not want their aircraft gone for long periods of time. They operate several Challengers and Learjets.

Now on to Chicago and DuPage Aerospace. We spoke with John Bullock, Vice President. They are a Part 135 operator with a fleet of Gulfstreams and Hawkers. Again, this is a well established company with a great track record.

Here different than above, their business is almost 100% retail, relying almost exclusively on word of mouth. He acknowledged that getting new customers outside of word of mouth was a big challenge. And when comparing sales of January 2024 to January 2025 they were about the same.

Another marketing trick that a lot of these companies have not learned is how to get their message directly to the decision makers instead of some administrative assistant. He too, acknowledged that was another problem.

He was quite candid about another challenge and that was keeping good pilots. First off, there is a bad perception of Chicago as an unsafe city. He also said that most of his experienced pilots were over 65. That of course is due to the age restrictions on commercial airline pilots. As far as training young new pilots, he said, the training costs about $30,000 each. However, once they usually get enough experience, they move to commercial airlines.

The takeaway from two of these stories is how they are not trying any new innovative marketing. It seems almost bizarre as the weekly free newsletter they subscribe to talks about all of these new techniques and the success stories. A head scratcher for sure. There’s a signup form on our homepage. 

That’s it for Part 1. This was fun !

If you’re interested in chatting, give us a call at 786-949-4141 or email us at: aircraftguys@gmail.com

2025 State Of The Private Jet Charter Industry (Part 1)