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Then, there are strictly private planes owned by individuals and corporations for their own use. They, along with the charter operators, sup- port another big part of the business, fixed-base operators. FBOs, as they are known, provide hangars, fuel, and on-site maintenance, as well as ground amenities like passenger lobbies, park- ing, and rental cars, to planes going and coming through the airport. HPN has five FBO facilities.
Tradewind, meanwhile, serves yet another part of the market. “We’re best known for our Nantucket shut- tle,” explains Tradewind president Eric Zipkin. “It is a shared charter, where people buy individual seats on the flights.” The service started with Friday-through-Sunday flights only but has grown to seven days a week. They fly a similar service to Boston and Martha’s Vineyard. The sched- uled service is a good business on its own, Zipkin says, but it also serves another purpose: “Our shuttle service is a good marketing concept because people learn about us, then come back and charter individual flights.”
Tradewind operates 18 aircraft, up from 12 just two years ago. The company owns 11 planes, with the balance owned by others. “Our busi- ness was up almost 30 percent in 2015, and it’s full steam ahead for this year,” Zipkin says. “Margins in this business run the gamut. Boutique aircraft management companies like ours are in the 20- to 30-percent range. It’s also a high-risk business: If you lose management of an aircraft or two, there goes your profit.”
White Plains-based Wings Air Helicopters represents yet another variety of local private aviation: helicopter service. Wings’ president, Javier Diaz, says his five helicopters serve three distinct markets, including
Westchester Aviation by the Numbers
371,988 Non-airline passengers 367,529 Airline passengers 12,028 Airline flights
52,474 Charter and air taxi flights 72,788 Private* flights
295 Aircraft based at HPN
*private, non-commercial flights including personal use by aircraft owners and
business use by corporate owners of their own planes
personal travel. “We do up to seven flights a day to the Hamptons,” he says, adding that Saratoga Springs and other locations upstate are popular, too. “We also have a strong business with the Atlantic City casinos, as well as Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods.”
Business travelers take advantage of the versatility and convenience of helicopter service, especially out of Manhattan. “If you want to fly from NYC to Pittsburgh,” Diaz points out, “all you have to do is go to one of the heliports, and you’ll be in the air 90 minutes before you could even get on an airplane from LGA.” About 65 percent of his passengers fly from one of the three heliports in Manhattan. Then there is the aerial-movie-and- photography business, which is so good, Diaz is a member of the Screen Actors Guild.
“As people become busier and wealthier,” Diaz says, “their time be- comes more valuable. They need to get to places ‘now,’ and that’s why the demand [for private aviation] is good. The demand will be there for the foreseeable future.”
Speaking of the future, does it hold tailwinds or headwinds for the private-aviation industry? Not sur-
Source: 2014 FAA data
prisingly, regulation and technology may well be the determining factors. Google “air charter Westchester,” and you’ll get about 154,000 results. Al- most all of them are for charter bro- kers—unregulated companies that don’t own, fly, or manage planes and may not even have an office. Brokers aren’t new, but their numbers mush- roomed as instant worldwide com- munication enabled anyone with a cell phone and email address to open shop. Good ones, who can be reached 24/7 and have strong relationships with the charter companies, add value to the experience for both their customers and the airplane owners— but it pays to shop around.
A wave of new private-air-service concepts is rising along with demand in the market. As with anything new, some succeed and others don’t. Beacon Air debuted a Netflix- like subscription service in which passengers paid a flat monthly fee for unlimited flights from HPN to Boston last year, but it has already ceased operations.
ImagineAir, headquartered in Atlanta, started service in 2007 and entered the Westchester market two years ago. Its concept? On-demand
Demand Is Taking Off
According to FAA projections, the expected number of Westchester non-airline passengers over the next 20 years is going in one direction: up.
2025
428,395 passengers
2030
456,252 passengers
2020
397,996 passengers
2015
370,710 passengers
Source: FAA projections
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2035
484,837 passengers