Alas, What Might Have Been... TAG Units Stay Home After All

Chalk up another casualty of September 11. TAG Aviation and its far-flung affiliates, charter and aircraft management specialists that recently branched into the fractional field by teaming with Cessna to form CitationShares, and which now operate the historic Farnborough Aerodrome as a pioneering UK FBO, planned a first-ever presence at NBAA in September but have opted out of this week's replacement show.

TAG has been busy implementing new systems to reduce paperwork and eliminate duplication of effort.

"We really did double in size in the last couple of years in terms of employees and airplanes," says TAG Aviation USA president and CEO Jake Cartwright. "When you are growing like that the office systems just can't keep up." TAG has implemented new accounting procedures, and installed an intranet system called TAGNet that coordinates sales and personnel data, scheduling, even changes in currency values, throughout the group.

TAGNet has perhaps come just in time, as the attacks of September 11 resulted in a tremendous spike in charter activity with sales for that month double, says Cartwright, those of any previous month of the year.

Affiliate TAG Aeronautics, which handles much of the Bombardier line in the Middle East, has just agreed to purchase five new Global 5000 jets.