Flexjet LLC

So that was the, that was the start and, uh, and moving in, both into sales and into the, into the fractional ownership world.

And then Raytheon went on to become Flight Options, or they bought Flight and, and is now really what is Flexjet, isn't it? So it's done pretty well.

Yeah.

That all, uh, they, they, uh, joined together with Flight Options in 2002 and, and then have evolved since then under, uh, under the Directional umbrella and the Flexjet umbrella, which has been, which has been great.

Uh, for me, in 2002, um, I was approached by NetJets to, to, uh, take a territory sales position out of Chicago.

I was living in Minneapolis at the time and, uh, and so I made the move to NetJets, uh, in 2002 and ran a four-state, uh, four-state territory to start with, uh, out of Chicago.

Yeah, exactly.

You, you, you shouldn't be flying solo in that situation.

Fleets in the world flying these aircraft are American.

So NetJets, FlexJets, Wheels Up, Thrive, Bond, right? So a ban on Bombardier orders is functionally a ban on American aircraft buying the aircraft they've already ordered.

And again, this is the fact that the system that we operate in, it doesn't care about the intention behind his input.

The North American, and frankly, the American aerospace supply chain took sort of 80 years to integrate into the global economy, and it doesn't reverse gears over a long weekend or a Labor Day post.

Good for you.

The people that I wonder if they do have to worry about it is folks like Flexjet, Bond, NetJets, Thrive, who will come up later in the show, right? These people who have these big orders.

I wonder if they're wondering, "Hey, you know, how long, is this, is this one gonna stick? Is this for real this time or not?"

Yeah, and he even joked the last time that he threatened something against Bombardier, or, you know, when we were trying to get, he was trying to get the Gulfstream certified, that they caved in, like, two hours.

Yeah, so for those that didn't read the article, this is a little bit of a nuanced investment by Honda.

Historically, manufacturers have owned fractional programs.

So Flexjet was owned by Bombardier.

There was Citation Air owned by Cessna.

So let's talk about Sentient Jets.

You know, you were in aviation business with FlexJet for, you know, two and a half years now as the president of this organization.

What does that world look like now in 2026 with technology, the way that it's evolved, aviation, the way that it's evolved in competition and uncertainty the way like what's a day in the life for you these days?

uh it's it's not emc and it's not dell i can tell you right it's very different i think private aviation for me is very unique having come from different industries it's very very very unique i think um like there's a couple of things that despite all of the change remain a constant right the first thing for me is the people uh you know i walked into an organization where the passion met you at the front door, the commitment met you at the front door.

She has, she has an interview, an un- unscheduled interview with American." And I spent three and a half hours after, after the convention was over.

We went back in, and FlexJet was next to us, and they had couches, and we sat on those couches for hours and hours and hours and went through prep, and she had a really hard time because she was very prideful and defensive.

And it was really hard to work through that.

And she ended up with a thanks, but no thanks.

So I don't know if you realize it, but you could get your fixed wing licenses and do a helicopter add-on and have both for less money than you could learn to fly in a helicopter alone.

And I've actually sh-shown a couple of young folks that, and they did that, and they are now at Flexjet and major airlines.

So realize that you're spending a lot of extra money to learn to fly in a helicopter, uh, that could be spent perhaps more wisely in airplanes and helicopter flying.

All right, Kit, our last question's always the same on this podcast.