Luxury fractional jet provider Flexjet and jet card pioneer Sentient Jet have a new sister company, Halo Aviation Ltd. (Halo), a leading provider of helicopter transportation services in the United Kingdom. The transaction follows the acquisition earlier this year of Associated Aircraft Group (AAG), the premier provider of executive Sikorsky helicopter service in the Northeastern United States. These moves position Flexjet, Sentient Jet and their sister companies, FXAIR and PrivateFly, on-demand jet charter providers in both the U.S. and Europe, to become leaders in vertical flight, further expanding their offerings and global operations.
Halo and AAG, both manage fleets of some of the finest helicopters in the world and are leading providers of vertical lift and urban mobility services in their respective nations. This move will inject a new group of customers from Flexjet, the second largest fractional jet provider in the world, and Sentient Jet, which has 8,000 active jet card holders, and will pave the way for a unique end-to-end travel solution not offered by any other provider. The structure of these companies and their relationships to each other will offer differentiators in the market that other brands will not be able to duplicate – from the safety of flying managed fleets to the packaging of end-to-end flight solutions – these acquisitions will rebrand what the private jet traveler will want in a provider.
“My vision is to strategically position each of our flight providers to become a leader in its market,” said Kenneth C. Ricci, Principal, Directional Aviation, parent of OneSky Flight and its member companies. “Flexjet is the preeminent global fractional ownership company, Sentient Jet offers the industry’s leading jet card and FXAIR and PrivateFly have uniquely-positioned offerings in the on-demand charter space. Now, with the acquisition of Halo and AAG, we can add another market to that list: Vertical lift.”
Ricci added that the addition of Halo advances three important strategic goals, saying, “First, these acquisitions position us as a leader in the exciting future of vertical lift solutions. Second, it builds a core competency in urban mobility operations. Third it makes possible synergies with our other affiliated companies, like Flexjet and Sentient, allowing us to provide a complete aircraft travel solution. During the coming months, we will share with our customers and partners our plans for taking vertical lift services to the next level – perhaps through bolstering the fleet with a manufacturer order which could lead to a possible combination of powerhouse travel solutions.”
