3 minute read
High Flying Insight
Sky Quest CEO offers some practical travel advice.
BY JILL SELL
If you are the type of business or personal traveler who enjoys numerous delays and canceled flights, strangers encroaching on your seat and lost luggage, then maybe a chartered plane is not for you — stick with big commercial airlines.
Chartered flights are expensive and not for everyone, says Corey Head, president of Sky Quest, an aircraft management and charter aircraft service focused on Cleveland. But he says the convenience and safety they provide is priceless. Sky Quest was founded in 2001 and became a full-fledged charter service in 2004. Today, the company has 125 employees, 24 available state-of-the-art jets and a reputation that soars above the clouds.
Q. Why choose a charter flight and Sky
Quest in particular?
A. It’s still the safest way to travel. Airlines have HEPA air filters that remove 99% of germs from filtered air. But if the guy in the seat behind you coughs… In a charter, you’re flying with your family, the business associates you know and meet with in the boardroom or your golf buddies.
Sky Quest offers something for everyone. If you call one of the big-name charter players, they want a $250,000 upfront buy-in and you need to sign a big contract. With Sky Quest, you can fly one or two trips a year, pay with a credit card and forget about everything else. We also manage and maintain planes for companies and individuals.
With us, you have availability, an exceptional safety record, cleanliness, reliability and privacy. We have 11 times more options for airport access than commercial airlines in the continental U.S., so you get as close to your destination as possible. And you don’t have to put your pet under the plane.
Q. What’s up with business and leisure travel?
A. Business travel saw a depression because of COVID-19, and some people believe anything can be accomplished with Zoom. But I think that’s more for internal business. If you want to buy a company or you really need to shake hands with someone, you need face-toface interaction.
Personal travel is still elevated. Right after COVID-19, we saw 100 new clients in six months who fly only once or twice a year. We thought after COVID-19 subsided, 90% would go back to flying the airlines. But 60% to 70% are still flying with us. If you have the means, flying in a charter makes traveling part of the vacation. You can depart Cleveland and land at Marco Island in two hours and 30 minutes for lunch with little or no stress.
Q. How do you save your partners money?
A. We reduce the total cost of ownership by chartering out their plane to our Cleveland client base that we know. It’s a win-win for our airplane owners and our charter clients.
Q. What is the company’s growth plan?
A. We have about 30% year-over-year organic growth. We are not out there buying companies, but slowly calculating our growth. We pick the right partners and the right employees to make smart decisions even if it slows our growth a little bit. I am really not interested in finding a pilot out of Dallas who might relocate to Cleveland for only two years. I want highly trained, great people who grew up here and want to raise families here.
At Sky Quest, you can work what I call a 9-to-5 pilot job and average only five to eight overnight trips a month in a hotel. We want pilots who understand the work/life balance. We can’t pay as much as Fed Ex, but we promise you a better quality of life.
Q. What’s the future of charter flight companies?
A. More fuel-efficient engines, more sustainable fuel. In 10 or 15 years, there may be all-electric, short-hop airplanes. Cleveland is a nice central location. You can get to lot of different metro places in a short time. Now, fuel costs my company more than $1 million a month. If we can save money by using reliable, sustainable fuels, that is an obvious decision for the future.
