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Jet Linx expands to Texas despite unfavorable economic conditions
If you look at the statistics, it is clear that the private aviation industry is still slumping.
However, this is not stopping Brent Carreker and his family from setting up a new private jet company in Dallas Love Field.
Jet Linx Texas will be launched this month. The new Dallas-based company will sell private jet trips on a per hour rate for clients who want to travel to Wall Street or Aspen.
“The timing couldn’t be any better for us,” comments Carreker, who is looking at the industry’s status optimistically.
Jet Linx will sell cards that offer a set number of hours (25, 50 or 100) for trips on turboprops and business jets. The company markets its service with its one-of-a-kind benefits, such as high-quality personal service and refundable card features.
“There are a lot of people who like to fly, and there are a lot of people that will always fly,” said Carreker, who is the president of Jet Linx Texas. “We’re trying to play on this niche.”
The company is entering a struggling market. In Love field alone, takeoffs and landings by air taxi aircrafts were down by a staggering 52 percent during the year’s first half. However, the industry is still showing signs of promise. According to FlightAware.com, the industry was actually up by 1.5 percent last May.
“We saw a dramatic drop in activity from the beginning of the fourth quarter to the end of the first quarter this year,” says Keith Plumb, president and chief operating officer of Executive AirShare, a fractional jet company.
Plumb said that his company’s flying was down by 20 percent last January and February. But he says that the numbers for June looked good. He comments, “we’re almost back to the same level of activity as we experienced last June.”
The Carreker family was behind the Carreker Corp., a banking software company that was sold in 2007. One of the family members met Dennis Walker, who is the founder of Jet Linx, a company that was then trying to expand beyond its bases in Omaha and Indianapolis. The Carreker family offered two investments: passion for the industry and several industry contacts.
Today, Mr. Denny Carreker is vice chairman and chief executive of Jet Linx Management Co., and his son, Brent, is president of the new Texas unit.
“My parents have lived in the Park Cities for years and years and years, know the right kind of people if you’re going to get into the jet aviation business,” said Brent Carreker. “Our perfect customer would be an individual who is the head of either a corporation that cannot own a private jet, doesn’t want the publicity of owning a private plane and flies 25 to 30 hours a month. That’s an extreme.”
Source: Dallas Morning News
