Atlantic Stresses FBO, Charter Work After Selling Wilmington Maintenance

Since the divestiture last year of its Wilmington, DE, maintenance facility to Dassault Falcon Jet, Atlantic Aviation has renewed vigor for its FBO and aircraft management charter businesses.

Atlantic Aviation also has a new corporate face as a subsidiary of Executive Air Support (EAS), a division of the Millionaire Interlink FBO franchise business. Atlantic was owned by Legg Mason between September 1997 and December 2000.

"If you look at the last year, we went through the divestiture of the Wilmington operations, and the company was for sale at the time," Atlantic Aviation senior VP Doug Shaw told Show News. "Our focus now is to let people know that Atlantic Aviation is still in business, and the majority of people you dealt with before the ownership change are the ones you'll deal with today."

As a subsidiary of EAS, Atlantic is now part of a larger FBO chain. EAS owns three FBOs: in Farmingdale, NY, and in Bridgeport and Hartford, CT.

Atlantic Aviation owns five FBOs, with the main facility being in Teterboro. Run by Atlantic for more than 50 years, the Teterboro facility is in the process of finishing a new 30,000-square-foot hangar plus 7,500 square feet of office space that should open in mid-October. The new hangar will have two main tenants: Metromedia and Sony.

Atlantic's other FBOs are at Philadelphia International Airport, where it opened a new terminal in May; Northeast Philadelphia, where the existing terminal is being renovated; Houston Hobby; and Chicago Midway (which Atlantic acquired in 1999).

It was a matter of competitiveness that led Atlantic to divest the Wilmington maintenance base.

"Being an independent maintenance and modification center we couldn't compete on the same scale with the OEMs," said Shaw. "The Midcoasts and Duncans are big enough in size to offset fluctuations in work. We were only one location." Without the maintenance operation, Shaw says the company can now "leverage growth in the FBO business."

He continued: "Our expertise is running the FBO business and the aircraft charter business. We can focus on enhancing those, putting us in a position to acquire other FBOs or charter management companies.

"We're not afraid to admit that we'll be the higher-priced person on the field, but we focus on the passengers and get them served first, then the crew and airplane, and then maybe we can sell them some fuel."

Over time now, Atlantic will also place increased emphasis on its charter management business. The company has about 20 airplanes-mainly midsize and larger craft such as the Hawker 800, Falcon 50 and Falcon 900-split between managed and "charter partners," for which Atlantic helps owners market their planes for charter operations.

"We're a regional competitor in the market, and our client base is in metro New York," said Shaw. "We will be one of the price leaders and top service providers" in competition against Jet Aviation, TAG and others.

Atlantic Aviation, like its competitors, is working to improve its efficiencies in order to weather what's been a difficult corporate travel time for the industry. Shaw estimates that travel is off 40% to 50% for "top end users" because of the economy.

"We're placing tight control on expenses and working with our biggest customers so as not to lose any of them," he said. "We're also working to get more people to try to use charter."

-Barry Rosenberg