Who Are You Going To Call When Your Private Jet Breaks?

16.12.2023 - 16:51 / forbes.com

Adam Kidan was aboard his Gulfstream private jet in 2021, headed from Los Angeles to the East Coast, when the pilot told him they needed to land in Las Vegas due to a maintenance issue. It took four days, dozens of phone calls and a couple of favors before he could find somebody to come fix his airplane. An entrepreneur who built his fortune helping others find workforce solutions, from warehouses to light manufacturing, he saw an opportunity. Beyond the manufacturers of private jets, he says there were no national networks of repair shops that could come out and fix your airplane if you have an AOG, industry speak for aircraft on the ground away from its base, or what we call a mechanical.

Much like those Roto-Rooter trucks that make house calls, Empire Aviation has more than two dozen vans located in eight of the 20 busiest markets for private jet flyers. That’s after less than 18 months in business.

“It’s a fragmented market,” Kidan says from his headquarters in a hangar along the perimeter of Palm Beach International Airport, the second busiest private jet airport in the U.S.

It’s also a big opportunity that goes beyond jet owners. According to JetASAP, a platform that enables consumers to get charter quotes directly from operators, 12% of charter flights are canceled due to mechanical issues.

Michael Farley, CEO of Outlier Jets, says mechanicals can wreak havoc on his guaranteed availability jet card.

“It’s a game of every minute counts. If there is an ability for the operator to get an airplane airworthy so the customer isn’t delayed, that’s a win for everyone,” he says.

That’s because the operator loses the flight revenue, and a broker like Outlier often loses money on the flight, paying a premium to secure a replacement aircraft on short notice.

In Kidan’s hangar at PBI, where jets are parked wingtip to wingtip, Empire handles a wide variety of maintenance, including various check-ups that are required based on flight hours or landings and takeoffs. A new 30,000-square-foot hangar was recently approved, and with 3,500 additional square feet of office space, it should open in 2025.

Kidan calls what he does “A simple business. It’s turning wrenches; however, the wrenches are working on $50 million airplanes.”

For those private jet owners like Kidan, time is money, so Empire operates 24/7/365.

Its phone number, 844-4-JET-FIX, is on all those vans, each of which costs about $80,000 to outfit.

During lunch, Empire’s President Mark Reyes excused himself multiple times to take phone calls to coordinate where various vans were headed.

In its first year, the executives say Empire attended to over a thousand AOGs.

One of its biggest customers is a national fractional operator. Most of the maintenance is