This week I traveled to San Antonio to attend the annual conference for NARA (National Aircraft Resale Association).  While there, I compared notes with some of the other top dealers and brokers in the country, as well as a good cross section of the banks currently lending on aircraft, aviation attorneys, tax advisors, OEM’s, maintenance […]

Last week I was asked to give a talk to the North Texas Business Aviation Association (NTBAA) about the used aircraft marketplace.  The meeting was scheduled for the next day, which is a little less time than I would usually like to pull my thoughts together.  However, I do talk about the market everyday, all […]

Our industry has always had a special relationship with the media. And I use the word special like I would use it in the sentence “that boy in the corner putting the glue stick up his nose is special.” I can’t say that we have ever been portrayed in an accurate light. When times are […]

Last week I made the trip to Dallas for the NBAA regional forum held at Love Field. I don’t typically make it to many of these forums, but I had not had many opportunities to network lately and wanted to hear some fresh perspectives on the state of things from some of my compatriots. The […]

The weather was looking real nice here in Oklahoma last week. We had some beautiful sunny days with temperatures reaching the 70’s. The grass was greening up nicely (at least the fescue) and the Bradford Pear & Dogwood trees were finally in bloom. Then all of a sudden, a spring storm blew in from the […]

It has been at least 6 months since any good news came out of Wall Street. I found that I really quit watching any updates on the market indices because the news was always so depressing. The same think seems to happen to me during baseball season. I will stick it out until the all-star […]

“If you are a corporate pilot, that raise you had been hoping for probably isn’t going to materialize. If you sell aircraft for a living, those “prime prospects” you anticipated signing up…six months ago probably are no closer to making a commitment than they were then. If you operate an FBO, you’ve noticed a significant […]

Most people tend to believe that the more options they have in life, the better. Whether a person is shopping for an aircraft, buying ice cream or dating, people tend to think that if they are offered more alternatives to consider they will be more satisfied with their final decision than if their choices were […]

There has been a lot of talk about the best way to battle the public backlash against corporate aviation lately. Many have suggested that the media should be presented with the necessary information to defend our industry and the business tool that corporate aviation can be. Unfortunately, I have spoken with some people who attempted […]

During the fourth quarter of 2008, the question of “what should I counter” was not one that came up very often. According to Jetnet database, the number of retail transactions during the 4th quarter of 2008 was down 37% from 2007. It is a bit harder to track the number of offers that were submitted […]