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<\/a>“A hundred airplanes is a phenomenal benchmark,” said Jet Linx President and CEO Jamie Walker. Photo: Matt Miller\/The World-Herald<\/p><\/div>\n
The trick to making money with airplanes is to not own them.<\/p>\n
Jet Linx learned that lesson four years after the Omaha company started in 1999, giving up ownership of its jets and shifting to aircraft management and a private jet travel card service.<\/p>\n
Now, Jet Linx is celebrating its 100th managed jet \u2014 actually, the fleet stands at 101 today \u2014 and ranks No. 3 in the highly fragmented industry of managing and renting out expensive air vehicles as a service to their owners.<\/p>\n
\u201cA hundred airplanes is a phenomenal benchmark,\u201d said Jet Linx President and CEO Jamie Walker.<\/p>\n
He hosted about 400 clients, staff members, vendors and others for supper at downtown Omaha\u2019s Blatt Beer & Table restaurant, followed by a private concert by the band Smash Mouth at Slowdown.<\/p>\n
No. 1 in managed fleet size is Executive Jet Management, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway\u2019s NetJets. No. 2 is Gama Aviation, based in Hampshire, England.<\/p>\n
Jet Linx added 38 aircraft last year and is headed for 110 by the end of 2017. Walker attributed that growth, about 30 percent a year in revenue, to the people running its network of 14 local private airport terminals, alongside the 95-member staff at its operational headquarters in Omaha.<\/p>\n
From pilots to airplane polishers, Jet Linx has 485 employees.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Members of the Jet Linx local Omaha FBO team, with their Hawker 800XP midsize jet and crew. \u00a0Photo: Jet Linx<\/p><\/div>\n
Joe Moeggenberg, president and CEO of air travel data company ARGUS International of Cincinnati, said Jet Linx\u2019s local network is a unique structure in private jet management, an industry with 2,300 businesses, nearly all of them tiny, that manage private jet airplanes.<\/p>\n
Jet Linx \u2014 an ARGUS customer \u2014 has a cost advantage because most of its flights start or end at its network cities, Moeggenberg said, meaning fewer expensive empty-cabin flights.<\/p>\n
Aside from a few jets managed exclusively for their owners, Jet Linx\u2019s card customers can book any of the airplanes made available at the owners\u2019 discretion.<\/p>\n
Jet Linx handles fueling, maintenance, safety checks, hangar storage and other services, including employing pilots, as well as scheduling and tracking flights for Jet Linx\u2019s card members, more than 200 in Omaha and 1,300 total.<\/p>\n