Wheels Up is buying its fifth operator, Scottsdale-based Alante Air Charter adding a dozen Citation CJ3 and CJ4 light jets
Scottsdale-based Alante Air Charter becomes the fifth Part 135 operator Wheels Up has acquired in just under three years.
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Ready or not, Kenny Dichter and Wheels Up plan to change the face of private jet access. It’s a big leap from marketing ploys like selling memberships through Costco. Beyond stump speeches at industry conferences, there will be the harsh spotlight from being a publicly traded company. If he’s successful, the lifelong entrepreneur will find his name alongside aviation innovators such as Pan Am founder Juan Trippe, former American Airlines chairman Robert Crandall, who ignited revenue management and frequent flyer programs, and inventor of fractional private jet ownership, Richard Santulli. The latter created NetJets, the world’s largest private jet operator, and gave Dichter his entree into the industry. In fact, Dichter might fly higher than all of them. Success would make Dichter the Jeff Bezos of private jets.
In a two-hour presentation to financial analysts Friday morning, the founder and CEO of Wheels Up, along with his leadership team, discussed various milestones, projected growth, and insights on where it’s coming from. More than that, they unveiled a dramatic vision for a private aviation marketplace they say could more than double the addressable market by 2025, democratizing the segment down to low single-digit millionaires. It will certainly be key in their plan to grow revenues from $695 million last year to over $2.1 billion by 2025.
The deal to merge Delta Private Jets (DPJ) with Wheels Up is sealed. The closing officially combines DPJ with Wheels Up.
The combination creates one of the world’s largest owned and managed fleets of private aircraft, around 190 airplanes from the King Air 350i to large-cabin jets.