Why Jet It Failed

Jet It sent a letter to employees saying everyone is terminated, and the company is shutting down.

Craig Fuller

Friday, May 26, 2023 at 06:40 PM ET

Verified

Prior to the grounding, Jet It was the largest operator of HondaJets in the U.S. [Courtesy: Jet It]

Key Takeaways:

Jet It abruptly ceased operations, grounding its entire fleet under the false pretense of HondaJet safety concerns, despite the real issue being severe financial insolvency.
The company's business model was unsustainable, offering fractional owners unsustainably low hourly rates and incurring massive costs by having to charter external aircraft to meet contractual availability guarantees.
Jet It accrued significant unpaid bills to vendors, including maintenance shops and Honda Aircraft, which led to aircraft being grounded or delayed, further crippling operations and exacerbating financial woes.
Fractional owners are now stranded with grounded aircraft and are responsible for covering accumulated unpaid expenses (fuel, maintenance, storage) that Jet It owed to various service providers.

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Buying a fractional share of an airplane is supposed to make personal jet aviation effortless, but for Jet It clients it has become a nightmare. On Monday, May 22, Jet It fractional owners were told that their airplanes were being grounded because of safety concerns about the HondaJet.

At the time of the grounding, Jet It claimed that it was taking the action out of an abundance of caution in light of an incident with a HondaJet. The airplane ran off the end of a runway in South Carolina. Jet It CEO Glenn Gonzales told owners that he was concerned about the safety of the aircraft and wanted to understand the reason that HondaJets were more susceptible to runway excursions than similar aircraft.