In 1988, three years before Eastern Airlines ceased operations, one of its pilots began a small charter business on the side. Tom Cooper’s small company offered flights around South Florida, the Bahamas and Cuba in Cessna 402s. In short order, however, the charter company expanded, and by the mid-1990s, Gulfstream International Airlines was operating Part 121 turboprop service on its old charter routes and had code-share agreements with both United and Continental Airlines.
But accustomed to working with professional, airline-trained pilots, Cooper reportedly was frustrated with the uneven quality of pilots who hired on to fly for him. So in 1992, he decided to start his own training program. The result is the Gulfstream Training Academy (no connection to the business jet manufacturer of the same name), which provides “an option for people who don’t want to do the flight instructor approach to becoming an airline pilot,” says Bobby Pinto, Gulfstream’s pilot recruiter and sales manager.
