It’s been more than two decades since former charter pilot Roger Woolsey went from being a Million Air FBO franchisee to owner of the company brand. And in that time, the industry has seen some changes.
In 2001, when Woolsey acquired the brand, Million Air was one of the largest FBO chains in the business, consisting of 25 facilities—24 owned by franchisees and just one company-owned location.
“We were the first chain not all under one ownership,” Woolsey told AIN on the eve of NBAA-BACE 2023. “We were kind of a well-organized group, but we had 25 different cultures and 25 different microbrands underneath a kind of common look.”
It took the better part of the next decade to hone those divergent locations into a single mindset of one brand, one focus, and one mantra, Woolsey explained. “When we stepped into the leadership, we really wanted to be the top-quality player,” he said. “No offense to my competitors out there, but it wasn’t like we were looking at some brand saying they’re awesome and we wish we could be them.”
Woolsey began to examine market-leading brands in other industries to try and understand what made them special. During that period, there was some churn in Million Air brand locations as company-wide facility and amenity quality standards were rolled out to all the owners, leading some to shy away from committing to such investments.
“Sometimes I was scaring them because they were like, ‘You are way overinvesting in this,’” recalled Woolsey. “I said, ‘No, that’s the difference between understanding what your product is. If you think your product is selling jet fuel, you are so right, I am overinvesting and I am stupid. However, if you think our product really is the service, if our job is to be in the kingmaking business, then I’m not overinvesting, and we’re actually very appropriately focused on doing things differently from our competitors and differentiating ourselves.’”
Today, the Million Air chain lists 37 locations, 13 of them company-owned. While that represents growth from 2001, Million Air has not kept pace with the expansion of its private equity-backed mega rivals Signature and Atlantic Aviation, each with triple-digit locations now under their brand.
“For those [chains] it’s easier for them to go write checks and pick up locations,” said Woolsey. “What we’ve done is with our own internally generated funds and debt, so although we are able to do it, we’re a bit slower and that’s given my competitors a bit of advantage on acquisition.”
Instead, rather than quantity, the company has decided to focus on quality and customer experience, with amenities such as Mercedes-Benz crew cars and Starbucks coffee bars. As an example, in 2019 it opened its long-anticipated new $80 million facility at New York’s Westchester County Airport, featuring a two-story terminal with enclosed passenger drop-off, three glass-sheathed conference rooms, six fireplaces, and a room-size golf simulator.
In this age of FBO consolidation, Million Air might be viewed as a ripe target, but Woolsey said he has no exit strategy and expects to someday pass the company reins to two of his hardest working employees: his daughter Allison, who was recently named chief of brand after a decade with the company, and his son Chase, a captain with Million Air sister company American Jet International, an aircraft charter and management provider.
With aviation having been a part of their lives since they were born, it’s not surprising that some of Woolsey’s children would be drawn into the family business. They are part of generation 2.0 as he describes them, citing other multi-generational business aviation companies such as Duncan Aviation and Cutter Aviation.
“I did not really realize it, I don’t think they realized it, but their entire life they’ve been in a master’s level program for aviation,” said Woolsey. “They sat around the dinner table listening to business problems and business opportunities, challenges and solutions, and little did they know that they were being infused, if you will, with both the love of aviation and education.”