Diddy's private jet is for sale, and Redditors are spying on Elon Musk

Jessie Naor (00:00)

Good morning and welcome to the VIP seat. Today is November 21st and the top stories in aviation that we're covering this week include how Bezos and Diddy's Gulfstreams are both for sale and why everyone is talking about the $175 turkey sandwich. Your hosts today include yours truly, Jessie Naor and our co-host today, Antonio Ferrara. Antonio, welcome to the show.

Antonio Ferrara (00:21)

Appreciate you having me. Thank you so much. It's pleasure.

Jessie Naor (00:25)

So sit back, buckle up, and let's take

right, Antonio, before we hop into our news of the week, so excited to have you on. I was reading a little bit about the nonprofit that you're working with, or working on. Would love to hear a little more about what you guys are doing and what it is, and give us your elevator pitch.

Antonio Ferrara (00:51)

Awesome, yeah, no, thank you. Yeah, no, elevator, high level. I'm an aviation brat. I'm 39. My father's been flying for American for that long. He's 60. So I've been born in this. I've been in the biz-aff sector for about 15 years between that and GA. And most importantly, I'm a father to a nonverbal autistic son. So I just felt compelled to do something, create a better environment, a better, more inclusive place.

forget the buzzword, right? This is a little bit different. For the community within aviation, it's from gratitude. I don't have a lot of issues like a lot of families do as far as barriers to travel, going to airports, getting on aircraft. So I wanted to do something. So our mission is to expose, educate, and empower the autism community in and through aviation. And that's through exposure events, airport tours, walkthroughs, travel services for families.

Jessie Naor (01:30)

you

Thank you.

Antonio Ferrara (01:44)

And then take it a step further, mean, 80 % of autistic individuals with some form of diagnosis or in a high school or college degree are underemployed or unemployed. So I'm invested in aviation. It's for better or worse, all I've ever known. And our industry has tons of infrastructure that this community can fulfill. A lot of people focus on what they can't do. I like to focus on what they can do. They can be dispatchers, they can be engineers.

Jessie Naor (02:07)

you

Antonio Ferrara (02:11)

data analysts, mean, there's so much infrastructure, gate agents. So, you we're gonna be working with a lot of different organizations from the 135 to the 121 space. This is a big thing, one in 36 kids today are autistic or have some form of diagnosis. So we're just looking to support and, you know, really create meaningful experiences and opportunity for families with level spectrum.

Jessie Naor (02:34)

That is so cool. And I mean, I think business aviation in particular is a great space because you have this really small community type environments in a lot of cases and so many different opportunities, especially in like corporate flight departments. That's a really cool mission. I love it.

Antonio Ferrara (02:54)

Appreciate it. it's, I mean, probably, I mean, I'm a pretty selfless person, I'd like to think, but I think this is probably tops the, know, the list there. And I'm just super humbled and super grateful that so many people have latched on behind it and really been trying to elevate us so early. It's only been about eight months. We're 501C3 pending. I mean, we're making all the right steps. We're helping reaching out to communities, trying to support them how we can while we're not in a fundraising scenario. I'm just.

Super blessed, humbled, and I just hope to really just leave the earth, the world, let's say, in a better place for the autistic community like my son, who is probably gonna need lifelong assistance, right? So, doing whatever I can to put the best foot forward for that community.

Jessie Naor (03:38)

Love it. Well, we're going to link some information in the show notes. So everyone who has an interest, please take a look. It's a really cool mission. So let's roll into our stories for the day. The first one is a much frustrating topic to many operators and owners and everyone out there. And was a really funny point of discussion last week at Corporate Jet Investor, the $175 Turkey sandwich or

the $100 PB &J sandwich or whatever it is. I think it's something we've all dealt with, but the number was mind-blowing last week that Ken was talking about. $43 million a year they spend on catering at FlexJet, and $6 million of that is just silverware. So, Antonio, I know you've dealt with this in the industry. What numbers are you seeing out there that are mind-blowing?

Antonio Ferrara (04:07)

Amen.

Yeah.

I mean, I've said this for, I've been in this industry so long and I've always say it jokingly to a charter client or just anybody that asks, you're paying 70, $80 for a chicken finger basket with cold chicken, right? And we get it, there's food service laws, there's all types of things, right? But it's definitely always been an overpriced market for sure. It's niche. And you know, I think Ken's throwing his muscle around a little bit.

You know, with that comment and more power to them, I think sometimes you gotta try and move the needle, you know, and bring light to things, whether it's all true or not, you know, don't, I mean, private equity has always been, I feel like in this space since the guys at Air Culinaire started it, I mean, they kind of made the model for that, right? And just acquiring kitchens. How do you put a stop to it?

Jessie Naor (05:05)

Okay.

Okay.

Antonio Ferrara (05:24)

I for the most part any of my charter clients, I'm not a big charter guy, but I'd work on a lot of referrals. I door dash unless I'm in like Europe and I can't or something door dash uber eats. You're getting hot quality food from the place they want. So it's it is mind-blowing and I don't know what it's gonna take for somebody to step in step up and reel that in maybe it's somebody like Ken Ricci coming in and you know, maybe for a bad lack or better weren't putting his money where his mouth is and trying to make the change.

Jessie Naor (05:30)

.

Well, that's the thing. mean, look, it's you can say, this is private equity's influence. But no, I mean, when it comes down to it, it's because it's a really, really niche business. And it's always been very expensive. Maybe it's getting more expensive because of private equity.

Antonio Ferrara (06:01)

Thanks.

Jessie Naor (06:06)

But at the same time, it's been a captive market. To get catering everywhere, there's kind of one person that you can call to do that. Now there are more, and I would think at the prices that they're charging, this seems like an area that's ripe for disruption. Where are the catering companies or the independents that want to come out and do something? Or the websites that aggregate their data? Yeah, I don't know if I blame it on PE altogether. I think it's just, it's been really niche and it's...

Antonio Ferrara (06:09)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jessie Naor (06:35)

hard to deliver the lobster and steak that you want at three o'clock in the morning anywhere in the country.

Antonio Ferrara (06:40)

That's literally, you took the words out of my mouth. I'm like, where else are you going to get a filet at that hour? You could try and pull it off in the morning for a door dash. But if you're doing a transatlantic flight or trans-pacific and it's an 18-hour flight and they're picking up dinner now to reheat eight hours from now, it's how is somebody going to disrupt it though? People ask me all the time, I deal in this space and asset management, people come to me wanting to do catering. And I'm like, great, but you're in Teterboro.

Jessie Naor (07:08)

Mm-hmm.

Antonio Ferrara (07:10)

Like it doesn't help me. You only help me out in Teterboro. So maybe you're alleviating some of that burden for me in one spot, but that's just one of, you know, a hundred airports that we're at in any, you know, any given week. So it's, it's going to be hard for somebody to maybe disrupt it. Maybe that's like a Flexjet or a NetJets building something in house and really being able to drive down some of those costs. You know, all these operators, the FlexJets the Vistas are all focused on sustainability and carbon footprint.

Jessie Naor (07:16)

Right.

Thank you.

Antonio Ferrara (07:38)

Well, how are you spending $6 million on plastic silverware? You should just have a no plastic silverware policy and all your aircraft have silverware on them. So it's nuanced, right? mean, we're just, you know, Monday morning quarterbacking this a little bit, but. Yeah.

Jessie Naor (07:52)

That's what the show is all about. Opinions, whether you like them or not.

Antonio Ferrara (07:58)

Yeah, but I mean, I think if they upped the level of quality, I don't think it would be such a big deal. I mean, if you follow Biz Av memes or like any of the other people, any other flight tests or anybody, you see stuff from Air Culinaire or Rudy's all the time and it's like somebody paid $300 for this whole spread and it looks like, I mean, my eight year old could have a better job.

Jessie Naor (08:20)

Yeah, but at the same time, it's not like there's, you know, who do you know in Wisconsin in the middle of the night that's going to produce something that's of any quality There's just no, there's no options. know, that's it. Yeah, yeah, true, Amen.

Antonio Ferrara (08:31)

But they advertise the quality though, right? And so it's, we're at their mercy until somebody can come in. think it takes, like I said, maybe a FlexJet or a NetJets or a Vista to really build something in-house that's scalable. Do I think Vista would do it? We're a Vista entity over at Talon Air. Do I think they're in a position to do that? Probably not. I think like a FlexJet or NetJets could possibly and if...

Jessie Naor (08:50)

Thank

Antonio Ferrara (08:57)

You know, he wants to get that number to come down, but that $43 million, a lot of that's probably flow through, right? I mean, he's not paying. It's not like he paid for that.

Jessie Naor (09:02)

Mm-hmm.

also want to know, well, how much of it is crew meals? Because, room meals is one of those, and look, I was a former big operator, like, if the crew's not eating, you're gonna have problems that day, so you better make sure they have whatever it is, even if it's a crappy turkey sandwich, like, just get them something. And we would try the DoorDash thing, we'd try the Uber Eats, you know, and inevitably they couldn't find the FBO, or it was a disaster, so we just went, you know.

Antonio Ferrara (09:09)

Hahaha

right here.

Jessie Naor (09:31)

with the big catering companies to make sure they had something to eat, but it's unbelievably expensive.

Antonio Ferrara (09:32)

Thank you.

Even the 121 space is dealing with this issue I was just talking with somebody over from Breeze Airways last week and a lot of her stuff that she deals with this crew movement crew meals catering and all that she's like I can't find nobody in White Plains like Rudy's too much this that the third so I mean even the 121 scene in a crew care space

Jessie Naor (09:41)

Thanks

Yeah.

Yeah, well if it was me and I was an FBO perhaps that had many many FBO locations and potentially the space, it seems like a good area for you to potentially get into. Wink wink, nod nod.

Antonio Ferrara (10:07)

Especially with places like Signature and Atlantic receiving a lot of private equity money over the past five or six years or so for all these acquisitions.

Jessie Naor (10:16)

That seems like the least path of resistance. You already have the physical location there, the 24-7 staff, but...

Antonio Ferrara (10:23)

Yeah, most of them have a kitchen in there or you could just put one in right? I mean, what's a hundred grand for a commercial grade kitchen?

Jessie Naor (10:27)

Right. Right.

Yep, so just let us know, pay us our consulting fee. Any FBOs out there that take our advice here for this genius idea? Yeah, yeah, nothing. Just peanuts compared to the cost of the sandwiches. Come on.

Antonio Ferrara (10:36)

Yeah

Yeah. We're not too bad. 10 grand a month. We're good. I mean, I'd hear some of the stuff people pay sometimes for things and it's just mind boggling and then they wonder, you know, where the bottom line is. So yeah.

Jessie Naor (10:56)

Yeah. All right. Well, we'll roll into our next story because we could go on complaining about this forever. But so we covered this story a couple of weeks ago and the famous jet tracker, Jack Sweeney, he was like a high school kid who's been tracking Elon Musk, Taylor Swift, getting all sorts of letters and lawsuits. He was banned from Meta and Twitter and X, but that has...

Antonio Ferrara (11:01)

That's what said.

Jessie Naor (11:19)

not stop well it stopped him temporarily but it's not stopped others so now there are these massive reddit groups that are popping up because this information is no longer available there's one on reddit right now that has over 200 000 followers just tracking elon musk alone so i don't think that we're gonna be able to fight this

Antonio Ferrara (11:39)

I mean the day of You know, I think secrecy is for a lot of things in this world is is probably over How many recent missing people have been solved through like the internet sleuths right? People have tons of time on their hand

and they get amused or they get drawn to these particular things. listen, I get it. I get what they all complain about, but it's like, most of this stuff is like, it's like public information. Anybody with a flight of where or this and that, you can also, mean, some tales are blocked. You go on and look up a Talon tail lot of them are blocked, right? So I feel like...

Jessie Naor (12:17)

you

Antonio Ferrara (12:20)

I mean, it's just so funny to me what these companies have done for somebody just tracking their airplane.

Jessie Naor (12:29)

Yeah, well, and, you know, I think it's like certain people are getting more attention than others. There's a lot of people that aren't getting attention. But because Elon has now kind of gone into this political space, I think he's getting a lot more heat. I mean, even one of the commenters said, I love this tracker. It's great to see a billionaire's physical presence in politics. But how quickly in 2025 does the data become unavailable? We'll see. I do know the FAA reauthorization bill that was signed earlier this year had some language telling the FAA like, hey, you need to improve this. You need to figure it out.

But still at the end of the day, once you know a tail number and the sleuths go there and figure it out through FOIA requests and whatever else they do, I just don't think they're gonna beat it. I think they just need to kind of accept it and figure out how they're gonna maintain security regardless.

Antonio Ferrara (13:07)

Yeah.

Yeah, 100%. I mean, that's on the it's on the principle right to maintain his security as a private citizen. And again, I get it. mean, I can't speak from experience. It's not like I'm mad at people, you know, tracking me and my private jet. So I'm trying to like empathize and you know, put myself in the shoe. But then on the flip side, again, you know, you got people doing what you know, like there's people getting publicity and causing a stir for, you know,

for more or less invading people's privacy, I guess, right? It's like both, I'm talking about both sides of my mouth. Like I'm so like, I'm so like cut on this issue. Cause I like find it super funny that all these rich people are like spazzing out. And then it's also a little annoying that you got some like college kid out there just like poking them. But that's also funny too.

Jessie Naor (13:46)

Yeah.

Well, and they're claiming security risk. And yes, I do see that. But I also am like, well, but they're generally inside of a secure airfield. Like, you know, they're getting off that plane and they're walking immediately to the black car that's got a security team. Like, it's not like it's not Princess Diana in the tunnel. You know, they're not like right on top of them. But at the same. I don't know. I think we probably just need to just accept our fate. I don't think that anyone's going to get out of being tracked anymore in airplanes.

Antonio Ferrara (14:14)

Yeah.

Yeah, well, especially with the ADS-B deal, you know how that is now, right? I mean, every plane is trackable. Like, it's just the way it is. Everything talks to each other all across, all throughout the world. So.

Jessie Naor (14:40)

Yeah, and that's getting to, you know, it's another good story that's out there right now is the ADS-B tracking of, you know, at airports and how they're charging, you know, users based on the ADS-B data when it used to just be, you know, kind of a manual process. It's a big brother's here, whether we like it or not.

Antonio Ferrara (14:59)

Yeah, well, I mean, feel like the big brother with the FAA has always been looming. But again, they signed this Authorization Act and there's no real specific language, right? There's nothing defining what they can or can't do. They just said you need to make, you need to implement some changes, procedures. So, I mean, I think it's, I'm sure you probably share a lot of the same feeling. It's a lot to do about nothing. know, people with not a lot to complain about looking for something to complain about.

Jessie Naor (15:21)

trying to be private, at least know that it's just probably not really within reach at this point. So.

Antonio Ferrara (15:26)

Yeah, and you know, we get it from a security aspect, right? You are an operator. I'm an operator. We try and maintain as much security and privacy and discretion for the clients as possible, right? But like with certain things like this, there's only so much behind your control. Like I said, you go on, you look after our Flight Aware they're all blocked. So this information is private. Doesn't mean you still can't get it. You know, there's workarounds and yeah, I think it's gonna break you soon.

Jessie Naor (15:29)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Great.

Well, the layer of security though, I if you're chartering or fractional, at least that, you know, they can't tell who the passenger manifest is, that is still private. So, I mean, that is a way around it if you're that concerned, but if you're, you know, the Elon or Taylor Swift flying thousands of hours a year, using a fractional or charter is probably not in your best financial interest.

Antonio Ferrara (15:57)

Correct.

Do better with your trust in your entity structures, I guess, and try and keep it more discreet. I don't know. But once the paparazzi get you walking out an airplane, they got the N number. There's no way around it. There's no way around it.

Jessie Naor (16:21)

Yeah, it's done. All right. So next story today. This happened back in September, but we all know about Volato has shifted its aircraft fleet over to FlyExclusive I'm still not completely sure what the terms of that deal were. It's just basically FlyExclusive took the planes and the management and the customers. But Volato is still functioning in some way. It sounds like they're doing some sort of

like technology play now instead of operating aircraft. Not really sure where that's headed yet. But for the positive for FlyExclusive they did say that this deal has produced over $600,000 for their bottom line in this quarter. So maybe a good deal after all. Well, definitely a good deal. It seems like they just got to add aircraft to their fleet that were operational and already had customers. But I don't know. What are you hearing? You think this is going to be successful for them?

Antonio Ferrara (17:11)

I don't know. I like to look at history trends a little bit. And I've always pointed out Velado when people try and bring up different things, whether it's fractional or... Because they were getting so much traction. People come to me about aircraft acquisitions and they were like, well, I can get this Honda jet. And I was promised X, Y, and Z, right? So their model of a lot of it was pretty much doomed from the start.

And then whatever, I forget, was it Vaunt where they were trying to do the internet empty? Yeah, it was just a mess. And then between all the lawsuits and everything, I'm never, I love Hondas. Like I love the brand motorcycles, off-road stuff. I love Hondas, but I've never been sold on the HondaJet. And I think it's checkered past. So I think the verdict's gonna be out. I think it was a really smart acquisition as far as getting that client base that's looking to fly, that's ready to fly.

Jessie Naor (17:42)

yeah. Empty legs. Yeah.

Antonio Ferrara (18:07)

And I mean, they converted what, like 70 % or something of the current members. So I mean, from that aspect, it's great. I think the verdict's going to be out though. I mean, we just had another HondaJet go off a runway. It's not the first. And they just fixed, I think they just fixed the window issues. They were having window icing issues. I just, I don't know if the plane, especially when they're rebranding the fleet a little bit and they're trying to get rid of older planes and bring in the 350s. I don't know if the HondaJets.

Jessie Naor (18:11)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. And, well, and I, just.

Antonio Ferrara (18:36)

I don't know if that's gonna be a good play for them long term. I think they might end up selling those off maybe. I don't know.

Jessie Naor (18:41)

Yeah, yeah, maybe. Well, and I've felt the same way about HondaJet. I think conceptually it's a great idea, but I think one of the problems I have with it is just range. know, if you're actually selling charter or trying to do significant trips that aren't in just a very close regional area, it's hard to do. Like we all know that our biggest route in private aviation is New York to Miami or some variation of that. And when your aircraft can't do that consistently, it's hard to kind of, I think.

integrated into a large fleet that's supposed to be like a national operator, but it does work really well for someone who lives in a certain location and needs to go kind of short range from those areas, but it is, it's pretty teeny tiny in there. I'm just gonna say.

Antonio Ferrara (19:23)

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, I think so. I think the windshield design, if you look at that windshield, I could see why it's got windshield issues. I mean, there's all rounded It's like there's probably three more panels than there needs to be on that thing. The brakes, everything. mean, I think what you mentioned in that, think for fly exclusive with their base right there on the East Coast, kind of central down the middle, right? It does give them pretty good trajectory on that aircraft, right? They can. They're in North Carolina. They can get to

Jessie Naor (19:32)

Mm-hmm.

Antonio Ferrara (19:53)

DC or Teterboro they can get down to Florida and it's pretty much well within the aircraft's mission capabilities. Again, I think it's going to be what's the future of that airplane.

Jessie Naor (20:05)

Yeah, well, and it's got it's going to be the right customer. And can you build a large, large fleet off of that set of customers? I don't know. I don't know what the data is on that.

Antonio Ferrara (20:14)

I would love to talk to them. I bet you they're going to try and get the owners on those fractionals to fraction it on something else that they're looking for and move those jets. Because I guarantee you lot of those owners are already like pissed. There was lawsuits with the owners. mean, there were so many issues about the engines needed to be run. If they sat and you were voiding warranty, nobody knew. So I'm sure. I think it's a smart play. mean, this is like.

Jessie Naor (20:29)

It was a mess.

Antonio Ferrara (20:39)

A really good one for fly exclusive. just think we've got to see what the fleet does.

Jessie Naor (20:44)

Yeah, well, Jim's a smart guy and a well-known big operator. He knows his airplanes. I mean, it's a mixed bag, though. The report, their earnings, while their adjusted EBITDA losses have improved over the quarter, revenues did decline in the current year, which I guess, you know, it makes sense. Yeah, it's post-summer travel. As we get into Q4, it should be busier.

Antonio Ferrara (21:02)

Industry-wide.

Jessie Naor (21:10)

gave them a lower earnings per share, so the market didn't like it necessarily. But they did grow year over year. So mixed bag for them. Will be interesting to see what they do with those airplanes. But at least so far, seems to have worked out pretty well for them for the moment.

Antonio Ferrara (21:26)

What do you think about them going public?

Jessie Naor (21:30)

about Fly Exclusive going public. you know, think actually again, I'm like talking about Ken Ricci like the last two weeks because he had a great presentation the other day and he was talking about his decision not to go public and how, you know, he thought it was really the right move. I'm like so split on it because I understand you need a lot of money to scale these fleets, you know, to get to the point where you're actually going to be competing with the NetJets, the FlexJet, like you really have to have.

Antonio Ferrara (21:31)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jessie Naor (21:59)

some way of raising massive capital. So obviously that's way to do it if you can continue to prove yourself and garner the trust of people, fly exclusive more than others. They did go public when they were financially stable, unlike some other companies that were pre-earnings. So I think if anyone can make it, maybe they can, but at the same time, it just puts so much scrutiny on your business and people like us get to Monday morning quarterback every...

Antonio Ferrara (22:15)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Jessie Naor (22:27)

time something comes out and say, about this? What about that? You know, that's the downside.

Antonio Ferrara (22:32)

Yeah, and I you know, our industry is volatile enough as it is. And so to back yourself up against the wall and let rich people's emotions kind of dictate what your price per share is right, your revenue goes down, people look at it, dumping shares, picking shares, you've got, you know, owner reports, you've got everything right. And it's tough, I've always said like, there's like two or three that should be public and then like flex jet.

Net jets and not even I don't even think Vista is because Vista leverages a whole lot of credit too, right? Like wheels up shouldn't be going public when you're leveraging or evolving line of credit from you know the bank.

Jessie Naor (23:08)

Yeah, well, mean, look, even VISTA, even though it's just through bonds, like they're getting their own, you know, level of scrutiny from that approach. I think maybe that's the better approach though, because at least it's a different kind of scrutiny. It's not so detailed and overwhelming, but...

Antonio Ferrara (23:21)

I Ken made a good choice. think the right choice for people in our industry is not to go public.

Jessie Naor (23:27)

Yeah, yeah, but hey, you know, if you if you need money and you need to grow and that's the way that you could do it, I can see the attraction. You know, I see it and especially when you know when this was happening, it was just everyone was going public. You know, this was like this was the thing to do. Looking back on it, would he have made the same choice? I don't know.

Antonio Ferrara (23:41)

Yeah.

Yeah, blame Kenny Dichter for that one. think he kind of started that race a little bit.

Jessie Naor (23:52)

Yeah, well, it was just a time of exuberance. know, everyone had money. That post-COVID, you know, injection of capital onto the industry was just wild. You know, everyone was buying, everyone was flying. was, you know, only blue skies. But then that kind of rapidly changed.

Antonio Ferrara (23:57)

Thank you.

Well, think, I think, listen, there's so many great and moral and ethical people in our industry. But as you know, there's a lot of people that are opportunistic. And I think, I think a little, I think definitely a lot of that happened during COVID. I think that's why we've seen such a big retraction too. Even with, even with transactions have slowed, you know, significantly, even everyone thought the election was going to happen and everyone was going to rush to buy airplanes. Not really. Yeah.

Jessie Naor (24:17)

Mm-hmm.

No, no, I think they're all waiting to hear what's happening to the depreciation. Like we know that it's probably going to happen, but until it's written and signed, I don't think anyone's going to be rushing to like go and buy a bunch of airplanes until if next year they get 100 % bonus, you know, like why would I do that now? So.

Antonio Ferrara (24:40)

Yeah.

100 % Yep, I agree.

Jessie Naor (24:53)

But that's a great way to transition to our next story because if you are in the market for a Gulfstream, especially a celebrity-themed Gulfstream, Jeff Bezos, he just listed his 650ER. He took delivery of his 700 back in August, and now he's got the 650 on the market. Usually new, these go for around $65 million, but this deal is only $39 million. What a deal, and Bezos flew on it.

Antonio Ferrara (25:02)

Yeah.

Jessie Naor (25:22)

The cool factor there is just great. It's a nice aircraft. So he's flown around 850 hours this year across 334 flights. That is a lot of flying. mean, so he's really maximized the utility on this thing.

Antonio Ferrara (25:23)

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean at 10 years I haven't looked at it even see I should have looked for the for the listing But I mean 10 years even if he flew half of that the majority of it I mean still pretty it's pretty high time aircraft, but you know is you know, it's gonna be it was well taken care of And I mean everybody It's a it's a difficult airplane to sell right now Everybody did what he did everyone wants the 700 or the 6500 or 7500 there's

Jessie Naor (25:55)

yeah.

Yeah, well, that's it.

Antonio Ferrara (26:09)

The amount of 550s and 650s that are just sitting on the market right now, which is continuing to climb.

Jessie Naor (26:14)

Yeah, yeah, what's it? It's still a funky time. I mean, I'm hearing like there's certain pockets of things that are selling and this might be one of those that's not selling as quickly. But we'll have to see. Maybe just the fact that it was Bezos's and it's probably got a really nice interior and is outfitted well. But I did find, mean, him hanging on to that for 10 years. I mean, that's a significant operational period. know, he's not just, I think it shows the real utility that it's for and it's not just some like rich guys toy.

Antonio Ferrara (26:36)

experience.

Jessie Naor (26:43)

Like he's actually like using this thing. Like it's not just for fun.

Antonio Ferrara (26:45)

Yeah. Yeah, I got to look at the market. I 10-year-old Gulfstream at 40 million with that many ads probably got a price. He's probably got the Bezos price tag on it a little bit, just looking at that number without looking at the airplane. But hey, you know the game. You can ask for whatever you want. It's better than call for price.

Jessie Naor (26:57)

Mm-hmm.

It's just a way to start the deal. But the one that I find... Right, yeah, at least there's a number out there. Well, I don't know if it's actually on the listing or not. It's from this article where they're assuming. I'm not sure. But that's what one of the articles said.

Antonio Ferrara (27:13)

Thank

yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, I mean, listen, we manage, you know, not a guy like this, but I mean, we have one of our clients bought IBM's old aircraft and it's, you know, super well taken care of and it's a 550 and it's, you know, late model. Well, you know, like those are the kind of, those are, if you're buying a plane like that and you're a 91 guy, you know, that's going to utilize it, that's the kind of plane you want. If you're going to charter it out too, that's a good, it's a good plane, you know.

Jessie Naor (27:30)

Mm hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. So the other one I found really interesting and don't laugh at me because I call him P Diddy. I know he's Diddy, but I know him as P Diddy and I will never, can't say, like Diddy just sounds weird to me. Like, is that like a millennial thing? Puff Daddy? Yeah, like I'm the P Diddy-er, okay? Like I know he was puff at some point, but I'm like P Diddy is the one stuck in my brain. But also his G.

Antonio Ferrara (27:57)

I'm aging myself. I know I'm as puff daddy. That's what happens. Yeah, that's, I'm old.

Yeah. This is a funny one.

Jessie Naor (28:11)

Yeah, it is. The G550 is apparently for sale. It's also for charter, if you're so interested. But apparently, he's working on raising funds for his upcoming legal battles. I would say that thing's probably been used and abused in more ways than one.

Antonio Ferrara (28:30)

Yeah, now this plane I'm a little bit more familiar with because I have I did get a quote for a charter on this airplane. I don't know what this thing is going to be selling for, but I don't think I think anybody that realizes it's his plane is going to hold their feet to the fire. Plus, there's like 45 G 550s on the market or something silly right now. And then if you look at his interior, it's probably the original. If you pull it up, it looks super dated. It looks around like a.

Jessie Naor (28:40)

you

Yeah.

Yeah, that's gonna be a tough one.

Antonio Ferrara (28:59)

like a 2015 interior. And plus, whoever buys that plane is probably gonna want all new soft goods.

Jessie Naor (29:01)

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Antonio Ferrara (29:09)

You know?

Jessie Naor (29:11)

The surfaces of that aircraft are probably not something that I would be interested in flying on, but man, poor...

Antonio Ferrara (29:14)

Yeah.

You're have to call like an Eric Roth or like a Seth Newman for a new interior, you know, like I need leather, carpet, sidewalls, headliner, everything.

Jessie Naor (29:25)

at.

Yeah, yeah, maybe they should go ahead and do the retrofit before sticking that thing on the market. It's probably good idea.

Antonio Ferrara (29:34)

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I love black jets. So it's got that going for it. And two years ago, this would have been an easy sell. Currently. So I think whoever gets is gonna have a what's word I'm looking for? Great mantle piece, a story piece to tell everybody about when they're on the airplane.

Jessie Naor (29:38)

Cool, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

It will definitely be a fun story if nothing else. Just, yeah, maybe, you know, good time to go ahead and get all that interior done in the process.

Antonio Ferrara (30:05)

I love the history of old aircraft owners. I've seen so many planes come through and like, Ozzy Osbourne used to own this G3 and this other guy had it he used to fly it in here all the time and bring us in there and show it. I just love older airplanes like that. There's just anything with history, people that own them. It's just another cool factor of our industry,

Jessie Naor (30:16)

Finish.

Yeah, but you have to be careful because even like, you know, the Epstein plane, it's, well, planes are notorious. And recently, I mean, even during the political season, you know, because one of Trump's people chartered an Epstein plane, then all of a sudden there's this weird like media connection between Epstein's plane and this person. And it's like, no, they have nothing to do with each other whatsoever. So if you're going to charter it, you know, that's something I would be keeping in mind, too. Like, I don't know.

Antonio Ferrara (30:41)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jessie Naor (30:53)

what's going to result from this case, but it could be interesting.

Antonio Ferrara (30:55)

Yeah, and last little thing, like Talon Air here, we used to manage Bernie Madoff's aircraft. I've been here 10 years and that was just before I got here. And, I heard when he got arrested, you know, the founder of Talon Air, Adam Katz, basically just commandeered the aircraft, sent it out on the road, like didn't bring it back and just chartered the heck out of it because he probably got taken a little bit. Bernie was his friend and he was managing his jet. He probably got burnt a little bit too. So yeah, I mean, just another thing like that.

Jessie Naor (31:01)

Mm-hmm.

Antonio Ferrara (31:24)

the line guys here speak, yeah, we would load up heavy suitcases and they would go to England and the suitcases wouldn't come back. I'm like, my goodness, know, like so crazy. And that was like a legacy 600. So yeah, like, you know, it's like, it could be good, could be bad.

Jessie Naor (31:30)

Hmm?

Yeah, infamous and buyer beware. Just think about what you're going to be doing with that thing. If you do get probably an excellent deal though, I would say that's probably going to be one of the best ones out there if you're looking for good prices.

Antonio Ferrara (31:45)

Yeah.

Did you see what the, do you see what the five fifties registered on dove? Love air LLC. Now you think about it. You're like, holy shit. It was under our nose the whole time. Sorry for the language.

Jessie Naor (31:55)

no.

That's just wrong. It's just wrong.

no, it's true. It's true. mean, there were all these like, you go back and listen to these songs and you're like, wait. Like that doesn't work. God.

Antonio Ferrara (32:13)

Yeah. Or the Justin Bieber video where like I've adopted him for the next 24 hours. You're like, uh-oh. I know. Bieber.

Jessie Naor (32:21)

And it's, he just really can't get away with stuff if you're a celebrity, guys. You know, like just this. is. All right, so the last story of the day, which obviously is very close to me, and it is a little sad, but Wheels Up has officially acquired Grand View Aviation's fleet. The deal went through just a couple days ago. I talked about this a little bit on the last show, but you I just wanted to.

Antonio Ferrara (32:28)

Yeah, so crazy. So crazy.

course.

Jessie Naor (32:50)

to a shout out here because there are some fantastic people in that operations team that are looking for jobs. So if you got, if anyone out there has some roles that you think a highly trained Grandview person would be a good fit for, tons of people looking for work, except for the pilots, they did keep the pilots and the airplanes, but I just want to give a little shout out there because I feel bad for my former team and I know there's some amazing people there that are homeless now, so.

Antonio Ferrara (33:16)

Well, I've got I've got lots of connections in the staffing space in here too. I'll connect you with my HR director over here and if we got it if we have anything or point you I'm happy to help anybody you know from your team and your network there. Listen, you say it's bittersweet. I'm like a big critic of wheels up. I mean I'm a nobody right, but I'm just I don't like the way they've done business. There's a lot of different things. I think they've you know potentially.

Jessie Naor (33:34)

Yeah.

Antonio Ferrara (33:43)

private aviation down in certain aspects from whether it's acquisitions to charter. There's just some moves that they've made, but this is probably the best move that they've made to date. you bought 17 aircraft that are cheap to operate, have good profit margins and have a really good mission profile. So like out of anything they've ever done, this is great. Let's just see if they don't screw it up. For lack of a better term.

Jessie Naor (33:53)

Yes.

Yes.

Well, I I said 10 years ago, 10 years ago, the ideal fleet was the Phenom 300 and the Challenger 350. Like those are the two that you want on a heavy utilization, busy, busy, charter fleet. So agreed. Yeah, no, it's kind of crazy. So no, the Grandview name will be going away. They're already transitioned over. I mean, I'm already hearing that, I mean, Wheels Up is doing the bookings for everything at this point. So it's the end of an era.

Antonio Ferrara (34:15)

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Jessie Naor (34:38)

for sure, no more.

Antonio Ferrara (34:38)

and they slap and paint on airplanes and all that.

Jessie Naor (34:41)

Yeah, think, I mean, it's time for a retro on some of these because I mean, some of the fleets, you know, 2014, 2015, it's like, it's time anyway. But yeah, they're going to upgrade them, paint them and slap GoGo Galileo on there and see if they can make some money.

Antonio Ferrara (34:48)

Yeah.

So what are you hearing from your people in there that are pilots that are staying on? What are their thoughts? What are they being told? I mean, that you could share, right? You don't have to tell anybody's names. What are you kind of hearing on the inside?

Jessie Naor (35:10)

You know, honestly, I haven't heard much from the pilots at this point. I really don't know. I assume that they're going to... I don't know what they're doing with seniority. I mean, there's so many variables to this that do get tricky with crew members. But at the same time, I don't think there's a lot of people hiring pilots right now necessarily. So, you know, if I were a crew member, I'd be pretty happy that least a big operator with good rules and programs is taking over. But we'll have to see. We'll have to see.

Antonio Ferrara (35:13)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah And and they're more I mean wheels up I mean another good thing they did in them I guess like the last year or so as they did sell off a lot of that AOG Who picked that up who picked that up was that air share? That was I think it was air sure I picked up that's all right there a wise person way wiser than me always told me and I don't always listen to him you can't do it all

Jessie Naor (35:48)

Yes, yeah.

Yeah.

Antonio Ferrara (35:58)

You know, so I think in the current climate they're in where they're just working off these revolving lines of credit from the bank and Delta keep continuously saving them, getting out of the AOG space, picking up like an operator like this that they can now grow off of and now just target these 300, 300Es and then obviously maybe like a super mid. And if you want to get froggy, maybe start looking at the Praetor 500s or something, which is, you know.

I have to tell you the five and the 600 are just like phenomenal aircrafts.

Jessie Naor (36:31)

yeah. Well, and like you said, look, they're making all the right moves. Like they're not there yet, but they are hoping for EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA. An adjusted EBITDA is not EBITDA, but I'll give it to them. They're looking for positive adjusted EBITDA by next year. So maybe this will be a comeback story. Who knows? But we need a little more time to tell, that's for sure.

Antonio Ferrara (36:40)

Yeah.

They just keep changing shoes more or less, you know, between everything that's gone on. We've had clients leave us, go to Delta Private Jets, which was, you know, wheels up just for all that to go on and to come back to us like a year and a half later. Wasn't getting what they needed, right? But that's anywhere. I mean, you started an operation. That's a black eye every operator has to wear from the previous operation. So, I mean, let's see.

Jessie Naor (37:10)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Well, and two, our customers out there are picky. know, unfortunately, it's aviation and something is always going to go wrong. Is the operator able to maintain the relationship based on what's gone wrong or, you know, how many failures do they have? Like, things are going to happen. How sticky is the customer to you is going to be on how you treated them, you know, for the whole lifespan of that relationship. And that's the tough part.

Antonio Ferrara (37:44)

I agree and that's one of the aspects why I think a lot of people keep bringing up AI in our industry, right? Like AI is going to take brokers jobs and AI is going to do this. Like maybe from like a booking aspect where you're going on a platform, but these people that fly private have companies and have hundreds of employees working for them. They come from positions of power and they want an accountability person. don't want to, they can mother eff a robot on the phone all day and they're going to get nowhere. Sorry, sir. This is not proper, whatever.

Jessie Naor (38:08)

Okay.

Antonio Ferrara (38:12)

They're always going to want that point of contact from a charter request to an acquisition to just a question, right? So no, I totally agree with that.

Jessie Naor (38:19)

Mm-hmm.

Or they don't want to talk to you until that $175 turkey sandwich is disgusting and they want someone to yell at them.

Antonio Ferrara (38:30)

Yeah. 100 % yeah.

Jessie Naor (38:35)

Alright, well with that, we're going to wrap up the podcast today. Thank you so much for joining us. The VIP seat is the best way to get top news on what's happening in private aviation. Don't forget to like and subscribe and follow us on our weekly email digest. Comments and suggestions on what we should cover next are always welcome. So thank you so much for being here and we'll see you next time on the VIP seat.