Story ID: 
Longstanding General Aviation Service Firms To Combine
By: Curt Epstein
Caption: Indiana-based Muncie Aviation has acquired aircraft sales and maintenance provider Des Moines Flying Service.
Word Count: 224
Indiana-based Muncie Aviation Co. (MAC) has acquired aircraft sales and maintenance provider Des Moines Flying Service (DMFS), in a merger of two of the oldest companies in private aviation. DMFS, which is located at Iowa’s Des Moines International Airport, was founded in 1939, and in addition to serving as a HondaJet dealer, has been a Piper Aircraft distributor for the past 75 years. The company’s maintenance center specializes in Piper, King Air, and Cessna Citation aircraft, handling everything from avionics to engine removals.

Employee-owned MAC traces its lineage back even further with its startup in 1932. In 2004, the family of the founding Ball brothers sold the business to its employees under a stock ownership plan. It is the longest-tenured Piper Aircraft dealer in the world and is also an authorized sales distributor for Daher’s TBM line of turboprop singles. The company operates the lone FBO at Illinois Delaware County Regional Airport, where it has its own Piper and Daher factory-authorized service center.

“We look forward to taking our common values and business drives and expanding on DMFS’s already considerable abilities,” said MAC executive v-p Steve Thompson, who was named president of the Des Moines location. “The DMFS team has much to be proud of, and my teammates and I look forward to working with them as partners.”