Story ID: 019a
Sky Harbour Riding a Wave of Expansion
By: Curt Epstein
Caption: The hangarkeeper will open three new locations in Q1 2025
Word Count: 771
TWhile not an FBO, Sky Harbour is rapidly expanding its footprint in the U.S., delivering high-end, boutique private hangar space for aircraft owners at key airports across the country. Since launching in 2020, the company has opened four locations, including Houston (KSGR), Nashville (KBNA), Miami (KOPF), and San Jose (KSJC). In December it acquired and rebranded an existing 120,000-sq-ft hangar complex at California’s Camarillo Airport (KCMA), and has three more facilities slated to open in Denver (KAPA), Phoenix (KDVT), and Dallas (KADS) early this year.
Each campus represents a significant investment, costing between $30 million and $50 million to build, and includes more than 100,000 sq ft of hangars staffed by a dedicated ground handling team available 24/7.
CEO Tal Keinan emphasized the company's commitment to reliability: “There’s no such thing as waiting—we will always be there on time,” he said. “It’s got to be bulletproof from end to end, and that means we need to control it. The fact that we can make a hard commitment to our residents says you can be as spontaneous as you want to be; those call-out times are just not a thing with us.”
Aside from the first location in Houston, all Sky Harbour campuses offer their own fueling services to tenants. In addition to private aircraft shelter, the hangars offer private entries to fully customizable office space depending on the individual needs or desires of the tenant.
Some use the hangars simply as a base of operations for their flight department and aircraft, while others fully furnish the personal space for business offices or entertainment.
Presently, the company has more than 500,000 sq ft of space generating revenue, and that total will double in the first quarter of 2025 as the next three locations come online.
It also expects to break ground imminently on Phase 2 of development of its Miami-Opa Locka campus, which is expected to be completed by the end of the year, adding another 120,000 sq ft of turnkey hangar space into a sizzling Florida aviation real estate market.
Awaiting approval is another eight locations: Windsor Locks, Connecticut (KBDL); Poughkeepsie (KPOU), and Newburgh (KSWF) in New York; Trenton (KTTN), New Jersey; Chicago (KPWK); Orlando, Florida (KORL); Washington, D.C. (KIAD); and Salt Lake City (KSLC).
“We have the lands, and we are in the permitting process,” explained Keinan. “For us, once it's permitted, we’re in the ground.” He expects all those projects to reach completion in the 2027 timeframe, bringing the company to approximately 1.8 million sq ft of hangar space.
Even with all those developments in the works, Sky Harbour is not letting up on the accelerator. “Quite the opposite, we’re pushing down harder and I don’t think the pedal has reached the metal yet,” Keinan told AIN. “We’ve been giving guidance to the market of 50 airports. Internally, I’m talking about a lot more than that. There’s a big opportunity in front of us; there’s no reason to stop.”
The company has engineered its hangar design to meet the most rigorous standards, whether it is California seismic requirements, Florida wind, or Illinois snow loading. With dozens of hangars under construction or in planning, in 2023 Sky Harbour decided to vertically integrate with the purchase of a building manufacturer in Weatherford, Texas. It expects the move will reduce its dependency on outside contractors and give it more control over the construction process, as well as offer economies of scale.
As of last summer, the new subsidiary had completed all of its contractual obligations to other customers and is fully engaged in the hangar-making business. “We spent millions of dollars in retooling the factory so it’s optimized to do one thing and one thing only, and that’s building Sky Harbour hangars,” Keinan said. “There’s no setup time between projects, it’s all exactly the same thing, so our welders are experts now in exactly the Sky Harbour weld on each piece.”
With the tempo of locations expected to increase, the factory will be increasing to a three-shift workday to meet demand.
“We’re spending a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of human resources right now on refining a service offering that is absolutely unique to us,” said Keinan. “It’s not just measured in the time to wheels up, but it’s also specific offerings that you just can’t offer [customers] if you are not configured like this.”
 
, full_html