PROFILE … SOLAIRUS AVIATION
AH: How did the sale come about?
Sunset’s success had followed from building many successful relationships based on a simple, transparent business model. Within about 18 months the wheels had begun coming off of the contrasting Jet Direct approach.
DD: We were approached in 2005 by Jet Direct, a private equity-backed, firm that was going around buying up small to medium-sized aircraft charter and management companies. It took about two years to put the deal together, so the sale finally happened in 2007.
We eventually got the business back, but we had to start from scratch building up relationships again. TAG Aviation US was also involved with Jet Direct, so we connected up with the former TAG leadership team and launched an all-new project that would eventually become Solairus Aviation in March of 2009.
I never got into this business with the idea of making money. I wanted to be part of something bigger and more meaningful and I wanted to leverage the company to reach the next phase for its potential. However, the Jet Direct story wasn’t a success, for a whole variety of reasons. This is very much a relationship business, with low margins. So it is always ready to tip into a race to the bottom as people try to keep more margin, and then relationships and service suffer.
At that stage, we had less than 25 aircraft, but some of our former Sunset clients came over and Jake Cartwright brought over some of the TAG accounts as well, so we had a strong foundation to build on.
“ TAG Aviation US was also involved with Jet Direct, so we connected up with the former TAG leadership team and launched an all-new project that would eventually become Solairus Aviation in March of 2009.”
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