This fireside chat recap is from FLYING’s “What’s Next in General Aviation” Virtual Event on Wednesday
FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: Partners in Aviation is a different type of fractional aircraft program. Think of it as Match.com for business owners looking to add the right aircraft to their assets.
DETAILS: Mark Molloy opens up about Partners in Aviation and how it helps aircraft owners who are looking for an aircraft to support their businesses but have a fear of the fractional process. It matches two owners to one aircraft under a structure that provides access comparable to sole-ownership. For owners flying between 75 and 200 hours per year, it’s a solution that never before existed.
SPEAKER: Molloy is president and co-founder of Partners in Aviation.
BIO: Molloy started his aviation career right out of college as a sales account executive for Beechcraft. He spent 34 years with them, then retired to his second aviation job with Partners in Aviation.
KEY QUOTES FROM MOLLOY:
“We are fractional by definition because there is more than one owner, but in the standard fractional model that’s multiple owners with multiple aircraft in an infrastructure around that ours is a little simpler. Ours is defined as two owners, one aircraft. That’s it, That’s all it is. By definition, we are a fraction, but only a fraction of two.”
“I sold new King Airs, and most of my clients had that debate of ‘how am I going to justify this? How am I going to justify owning this airplane that I really want but it seems like a lot of dollars, and I don’t know how much I am going to use it?’ I spent a good part of my time helping them justify that decision, and oftentimes, as we kind of analyzed that sharing the aircraft made sense, the math of partnership was pretty clear; it was everything else that was a bad idea. All of the ‘yeah, buts,’ so that’s kind of where it started.”
“Everyone is attracted to the math but afraid of the word ‘partnership.’ If it doesn’t raise the hair on the back of your neck, you’re not thinking straight.”
“The four areas we primarily had to solve are how you own it, how you share it, how you exit it … how am I protected in this you know financially and from a liability standpoint.”
“The low-end clients we serve are 50-hour-a-year clients, and the high-end clients we serve are 150-hour-a-year clients. If they are flying less than 50 hours, they are probably not going to do what we do because there is capital invested here because this is ownership, and you have to get up to around that 50-hour mark before it’s worthy of that investment.”
