Story ID: 
AIN Blog: Another Indie Bites the Dust
By: Curt Epstein
Caption: The sale of stalwart California FBO AirFite comes on the heels of the purchase of another powerhouse independent FBO.
Word Count: 594
As AIN’s FBO beat editor for the last several years, I have been tasked with riding herd on our annual FBO Reader Survey, and as a result of that close involvement with the best FBOs in the country and abroad, I have gotten to know many of them well, particularly the perennial top finishers. Some I have also had the pleasure of visiting. For the independent FBO locations, our survey is their Super Bowl, their Oscars, Emmys, Grammys, Golden Globes and People’s Choice Awards, what-have-you, all rolled into one. They appreciate what being highly rated by their customers/our readers means to their business, and in most cases view it as a measure of recognition for the good work done by their staff.
Earlier this year I was surprised by the sale of Tampa International Jet Center (TIJC), a regular top five-rated location, to Sheltair. While the factors behind the transaction, once explained, made perfect sense from both sides of the equation, it meant another proud, fiercely independent FBO had vanished in the consolidation cauldron.
That situation was just repeated as AirFlite, another top performer in our survey, was sold by parent company Toyota, to the recently reconstituted Ross Aviation. Again, the factors make perfect sense. In addition to providing decades of exemplary service to general aviation traffic at Los Angeles-area Long Beach Airport/Daugherty Field, AirFlite had also served as home to Toyota’s North American flight department. In 2014, when the company announced plans to relocate its North American headquarters from Southern California to Plano, Texas, many felt the writing was on the wall. Ross is looking to re-establish itself as a growing FBO chain, and the addition of a premier FBO such as AirFlite, along with locations at Washington Dulles and NYC-area Westchester County Airport, among others, can only fortify its stature.
I had the opportunity to visit the FBO a few years ago when Heli-Expo was held in nearby Anaheim. Throughout its nearly quarter century of existence, the facility has been meticulously maintained, and while I waited for my hosts in the spacious atrium lobby with its centerpiece tropical aquarium, my eye was drawn to a framed and matted copy of the AIN FBO Survey from 1994. There, perched at the top of the list of that year’s top 25 FBOs, was AirFlite, one of the few facilities still with the same name and ownership.
Upon completion of the sale in November, both will change, according to sources familiar with the transaction. The previous Ross Aviation maintained the names of individual FBOs instead of rebranding them, a practice that created the largest FBO chain no one had heard of. In its new iteration, Ross had to rebrand the six former Landmark FBOs to Ross Aviation locations, as Signature retained the Landmark Aviation name for its aircraft charter/management division, which it acquired in the Landmark purchase. Likewise, Toyota opted to retain the AirFlite name, which will result in the facility being renamed Ross Aviation Long Beach. The AirFlite FBO name will go out on top, having earned the top position in our FBO survey for the past three years.
I offer Jeff Ross and his team the same unsolicited advice I gave to the Sheltair folks upon learning of their TIJC purchase: just change the name over the door and walk away. These people know how to run an FBO, and if it ain't broke, don’t fix it.