Buy or Sell an Aircraft

Through our sales company, SKY Aircraft Sales and Leasing, Inc. we have successfully purchased and sold aircraft for our own account as well as providing complete brokerage services for our customers. We provide complete support through the maze of paperwork and regulatory hurdles. We have an expert team of advisers from the legal and accounting realm to assist in contract negotiations and advise on tax implications. This team is up-to-date in the ever evolving world of regulations. We are always ready to assist you in your sale or purchase of an aircraft.

Fractional Ownership

Thank you for taking the time to review our proposal on aircraft ownership. We have spent the last ten years providing air transportation services to an ever growing customer base with a wide variety of aircraft types. We have learned from this experience that there is a meaningful market segment of customers that have custom air transportation needs of a lesser magnitude than which justifies whole aircraft ownership. We have also learned, or hopefully already knew, that like most hard assets, the price per unit of productive use can go down markedly if the fixed costs of ownership can be spread over a broader base. And we found that there are a number of users or potential users who aren’t all that interested in managing aviation assets and are perfectly happy to pay a predetermined amount to have someone else take care of the maintenance, scheduling, personnel, quality control issues and FAA compliance.

If we could point to a single event that expanded the aviation business industry’s user base more than any other single factor, it was the introduction of Fractional Ownership by NetJets in 1986. Growth of this concept has been significant with over 5,000 shareholders subscribing to services now provided by several major players who collectively fly over 750 aircraft. Fractional Ownership as it evolved was expensive for a number of reasons: the initial cost of a new aircraft, the number of aircraft needed to ensure guaranteed availability, and the nationwide location of owners, resulting in costly relocation of unoccupied aircraft. In addition to whole ownership of aircraft and fractional ownership another concept has evolved to serve a more regional base of owners utilizing pre-owned aircraft. This concept referred to as Regional Fractional Shares, is not entirely new. Proximate friends and business associates have often participated in co-ownership of proximate aircraft. The difference is professional management and a less costly regional base. After careful analysis, we have launched in South Florida a plan that provides a cost effective solution to aircraft ownership. It’s appeal lies in delivering a consistently high level of service at a significantly lower cost than other alternatives. Fractional ownership of an aircraft meets the customer’s air transportation needs proportional to the percentage of equity in the machine. If you own a quarter share, you are going to have first call on that aircraft’s availability one fourth of the time. If you are a good planner, that can meet 100% of your custom air transportation requirements.

Fractional Share Ownership guarantees availability for a fair share of the aircrafts available time and, if the users are able to plan ahead and schedule in advance, it offers some significant cost advantages. It requires a concentration of users in a given geographical area. The aircraft has a home base, which carries with it economy of scale benefits, and positioning flights (a large core cost for the fractional provider) are kept to a minimum. The South Florida market has a large state, regional and Bahamas focus. Based upon our actual customer profiles the fractional business model makes good economic sense for a number of users. Our customer generally flies less than 150 hours per year. Our business model is based on the premise that every time an airplane moves in or out of one of our hangars, it tows with it a cost for the square footage it occupies, a fuel price, maintenance price, pilot expense and insurance. Many of these costs are fixed, therefore the more hours flown on a calendar basis, the less cost per hour. Airplanes are a cost center. There is an economic burden for their use. We just want to keep that burden as manageable as possible while delivering the best possible levels of productivity and service. Features and benefits of our Regional Fractional Share programs go beyond the lower cost for an equivalent transportation product. You make one phone call to the same number for all your air transportation requirements. Our experienced personnel operating well-maintained aircraft, relieve the administration/supervisory burden - things we know are important to the user group. Owners see the same flight crews, ride in the same aircrafts, and receive a custom air transportation product at a far lower cost than other alternatives. We operate the aircraft to commercial aviation standards under Part 135 of the Federal Aviation Regulations. This also allows us to further reduce the cost by utilizing the aircraft to its fullest capacity.

View the Sky Share brochure for further details.