Story ID: 415
New Ross Aviation Nets Top FBO
By: Curt Epstein
Caption: Formed earlier this year from the remnants of the Signature Flight Support/Landmark Aviation consolidation, the new chain makes a big splash.
Word Count: 498
In its first purchase after the initial six FBOs that make up the reconstituted Ross Aviation, the Colorado-based service provider chain has made a splash, with an agreement in place to acquire AirFlite, the top-scoring FBO in AIN’s Annual FBO Survey for the past three years, and a perennial top finisher for much of its nearly quarter century of existence.

Owned by auto manufacturer Toyota, AirFlite was once intended to be the cornerstone of a planned nationwide FBO network, which never came to fruition. The stylish, modern facility was immaculately maintained by the company throughout its 24-year existence and garnered praise from customers at a time when other FBO terminals of its age are torn down and replaced.

“We started out with a fantastic physical facility; it is really one of the nicest physical FBOs I’ve ever seen,” Ross Aviation CEO Jeff Ross told AIN. “Toyota has run that facility in an absolutely first-class fashion for nearly 25 years and we are honored and respectful that they are willing to pass on that legacy to us. It is an important opportunity, and we are going to do our best to continue where Toyota has left off.”

Speculation about the fate of the location, one of four FBOs at Los Angeles-area Long Beach Airport/Daugherty Field, had swirled since 2014, when Toyota announced it was relocating its North American headquarters from the Los Angeles area to Plano, Texas. The automaker’s North American flight department was one of the major tenants at the FBO.

The new Ross Aviation, which is exhibiting here in Orlando as part of the Avfuel contingent (Booth 2207), is backed by private-equity firm KSC Capital Partners. It was formed from the six FBOs that Signature Flight Support was required to divest as a condition of its purchase of Landmark Aviation earlier this year, and includes an FBO at Washington Dulles International Airport and two at New York-area Westchester County Airport among others. The previous Ross Aviation chain of 19 FBOs was itself sold to Landmark in 2014, and the new Ross Aviation reacquired some of those locations in this latest transaction.

Ross looks forward to using the Long Beach location’s sterling reputation to make it even better. “We think there is an opportunity to seek out more business on the airport, and hopefully even attract more customers to the airport,” he told AIN. “That is a crowded neck of the woods, and unlike most FBOs you have an opportunity at Long Beach to move people from other airports to Long Beach. Usually the other airports are too far away and there’s no way that people will consider relocating. But I don’t think that’s the case in Long Beach.”

The transaction, pending regulatory approval, is expected to close by the end of November, at which time the location will be renamed Ross Aviation-Long Beach, as Toyota will retain the AirFlite name.