June 10, 2025 • 35 mins
This week on The VIP Seat, Jessie Naor and Preston Holland unpack a major new acquisition in private aviation as Vital Farms founder Matt O’Hayer enters the jet charter market with his purchase of ATI Jet, now rebranded as Jetvia. They analyze the challenges of operating an aging fleet, explore a surprising drop in single-aircraft Part 135 operators, and discuss whether M&A activity is heating up again. Plus, they break down two major executive orders from the Trump administration on drone integration and supersonic flight, and whether the FAA can realistically meet the deadlines. As always, the episode wraps with Mile High Madness: from tire inflation by bike pump to celebrity jet reveals.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Good morning and welcome to the VIP Seat.
Today is June 10th. I'm your host Jesse New York and
our Co host today, Preston Holland is at the beach and
still committed to doing a podcast today.
So kudos to Preston and we hope you're enjoying yourself a
little bit. I am at the beach, enjoying
myself, enjoying the sun, and I'm wearing my airplane shirt.
This is by Sporty's. This is a free plug.
(00:22):
This was not a paid endorsement,but it's one of my favorite
shirts so I decided to wear it today.
And you know you can always sponsor the VIP seat too, so
sporty is a wink wink and a nod nod.
That's true. That's very true.
Well, I guess we should probablybuckle up and jump right in.
Yep. All right.
So in the new news this week, itseems like there's some merger
acquisition activity. ATI Jet, which owns 26 aircraft,
(00:45):
I believe they own, I don't think they lease, not totally
sure on that, but a pretty largefleet of Leer 55 and Leer 60
jets. I'm the entrepreneur Matt
O'Hare, who was the founder of Vital Farms.
If anyone I've ever seen the eggpackages, it's got nice
packaging. You know your organic pasture
eggs is now getting into the aviation aviation business.
So welcome, Matt, and buckle up.It is a tale as old as time.
(01:09):
Jesse, you know what they say the best way to make $1,000,000
in private aviation is to start with a billion.
You know, I congratulations. I hope that it's AI hope it's a
great endeavour. I think that it's interesting
because it is, it is an M and a activity, right?
So it's, it's buying an existingbusiness as opposed to starting
one from scratch or you know, raising a bunch of money and
(01:32):
which is I think, I think what we've seen a lot more in the
last couple of years. And so it's interesting to see
kind of purchasing and and I would not call this it is
private equity, but I would not call this a private equity
buyout percent. Yeah, and I pulled a Preston
this week because I know you like to look at the timelines
and dates and all that stuff. But apparently Mr. O'Hare, you
(01:53):
know, they went public in July of 2020.
He stepped into an executive chairman role at that time.
And here we are almost five years later to the dot after
that happened and he's starting a new venture.
So I have to wonder, you know, was there some earn out
involves, you know, some gettingbored and wanting to get back
in? Business vesting schedules.
Vesting schedules are real and you would know this.
(02:15):
You've had an exit and you didn't have a vesting schedule.
So vesting schedules are real. It's AI think that it's a it's
an interesting timeline. But you know what, He was
probably a connoisseur is my guess of the public cover, a
chairman of the public company, probably a connoisseur of
private aviation and said, hey, I can make this better.
And I hope for his sake, and forour sake, that he does make it
(02:36):
better. I hope so too.
My only concern, you know, as someone who was all about buying
new aircraft because of efficiency, I look at the makeup
of the fleet and it's, you know,lira 55 lira 60s from all the
way back to 1984 is one of the oldest and 2005 is the newest in
fleet. Old fleet.
Maybe their plan is to modernize.
(02:58):
I would, I feel like it would bedifficult to make too much money
on a fleet that old just becauseof dispatch reliability, you
know? And a lot of people don't like
Learjets anymore, unfortunately.Yeah, I, I think probably the
play and this is complete armchair quarterback like
speculation. There's absolutely no like
(03:19):
actually I don't, I have no insider information.
So to be clear, but here's my guess is the strategy as you
walk in, you say, look, we're going to part out the bottom end
of the fleet because 1984 is that plane should should have
been put to pasture probably in 2020-2021.
It is still still holding on, still holding on baby.
So call JSSI say, hey, I got this airplane.
(03:41):
How much will you give it for meor give me for it and parted out
and then probably start looking at acquiring other aircraft now
a lot of the same type. It helps you with pilots.
I mean, you know this we talked about this the Southwest model,
but I think that the leer is I think today with you know with
dispatch reliability, I'm just not sure you can make a ton of
(04:04):
money on the airframe long term and how do you scale out of
those are the things that I'd start asking.
Yeah, I mean your field burns too high, your parts are old and
hard to find. I mean, it just, it starts to
get harder and harder. They they are changing the name
ATI Jet is going to become Jetvia or is already becoming
Jetvia at this point. And their goal they say is to
become the leader in retail fractional jet cart mid size
(04:28):
aircraft. So I mean, they're going to
stick with the mids. It'll be curious to see what
alternative, you know, I think everybody wants your Challenger
3 feet is in that super mid category.
But we'll see where they end up I guess.
There's a bunch of Hawker 909 Fifties for sale if you're
trying to stay in the older aircraft airframe market, I
guess other than that, you've got the Excel and the XLS and
(04:50):
those are, you know, they're competitive aircraft.
Yeah, I mean, and The thing is too just, you know, net jets
started this, but if your aircraft is not 15 over 20 years
or younger, it's really hard to get a certain kind of charter
clients, especially like large flight departments, you know,
Fortune 500 CE OS. They don't like those little
(05:10):
planes. Not to say there isn't, you
know, maybe a market out there, but I don't know.
I say if it was me, upgrade as soon as you can.
Maybe that's the plan. No kidding.
I think that this is maybe maybeit's a signal that M&A activity
is going to re wake up because frankly a lot of the capital
activity, the publicly announcedcapital activity because there
(05:34):
is some capital activity that's gone on in the background that I
think hasn't gone a lot of reporting.
And I'm not going to out them because you know part of getting
confidential sources is not outing them.
But I know there's been some capital raising going on in the
background. But I think this is probably a
signal that for the first time since I think Doug Golan talked
about this in his article, but you know, really since 2023 that
(05:56):
we've really seen this type of activity, you know, your wheels
up restructure, you've had a couple of other, you know, kind
of pseudo restructuring events. But not like it's not
necessarily been like positive news, if you will, right?
This is probably the first time that we've seen a real positive,
you know, outlook from, from an acquirer.
Yeah, well, I love, I love the concept.
I think you've got, you know, successful entrepreneur.
(06:18):
Aviation is a complicated business, but it's not something
that someone can't learn, especially if they've scaled,
you know, to the point that he'sscaled before.
So we'll see how it goes. I wish him luck.
And I guess Jed Via will be someone to keep an eye on over
the next few years. Yeah.
I mean, there's been some, some consolidation.
Another consolidation moment wasa couple of months ago before we
(06:39):
had restarted the show, the Fly USA purchased a small PC12
operator out of Tampa and consolidated that.
So that's been a little bit of also M&A activity that's
happened this year. And yeah, but you, you had
uncovered, which brings us to our next door.
You had uncovered, you sent me atext that said the Jews found
some data that was interesting, kind of in the bot.
The bot. Yeah.
(07:00):
So if people don't know, you know, part of what I do on the
day-to-day is the Private Aviation Safety Alliance.
It's a nonprofit data website. We're trying to uncover for
consumers, you know, informationabout private jet operators, you
know, who's got accident records, who doesn't.
But ancillary to that, because we're aggregating so much data,
so much information on 135 certificates in particular,
(07:22):
we're starting to notice an interesting trend.
And this last month in particular, there was a big drop
off in small operators and that's anyone, well single
aircraft operators. So for some reason and you know
sometimes this is the FAA kind of catching up on their work,
but we're seeing, you know a 6 to 7% decline in single aircraft
(07:42):
operators from the beginning of the year to today.
So, you know, 40 something operators have either
surrendered or certificate had it revoked.
I'm not totally sure what's going on.
The other segments seem to kind of be staying the same, but your
large operators, 10 or more fleets, they're kind of staying
the same. The 2 to 9 has declined just a
little bit over the last six months.
(08:03):
But I've kind of scratched my head.
Is it, is it acquisitions? Is it people kind of throwing in
the towel because the market's been tough, you know, the last
year or two? I'm not quite sure.
Yeah. One thing that I think is
interesting, some conversations that I had a couple of years ago
was that you have these, you have these, this, these groups
coming in and doing M&A activity.
(08:23):
And I'm going to name some specifically you have wheels up
make purchasing a lot of operators that have 135
certificates. You had Volato who purchased a
few 135 certificates in kind of their acquisition.
Now fly USA, not to put them in the same group, but they had a
mergers and acquisition activityand you know they will likely
start putting them on one certificate.
(08:46):
There's not an advantage to having two certificates other
than just incremental overhead and incremental headache,
frankly, like dealing with the FAA.
And so I think maybe what we're seeing is what I would imagine
this is. There's probably a long tail
from the mergers and acquisitions activity that
happened during 2020 to 2025. I mean, you think about
(09:09):
Grandview, right, which hits close to home.
That certificate probably bounced around and then it got
to wheels up and it's like wheels up doesn't need the
certificate. So they're just going to let it
fade out after they kind of pickand choose, pick the pieces off
that they need and then let the certificate go back to the FAA.
So I wonder if some of it is that type of activity.
But really if it was that type of activity, I think you'd see a
(09:32):
lot more in the upper end because those are the ones that
are getting consolidated. Yeah, the twos and nines.
Yeah, yeah, You would think thatthe twos and nines, you'd have
certain ones that would be now qualified in the 10 plus and
then the 10 plus, you know, A10 plus for those that have it is
actually a pretty solid asset tohave on your balance sheet.
I know one recently that transacted for a pretty large
(09:53):
sum of money justice certificate.
But the, you know, the 2:00 to 9:00 you kind of see maybe some
drop off the one I think maybe it's it private, private
individuals who said, oh, I'm just going to get a certificate
and throw it on my own certificate.
I I mean, I don't know, I think it's just really freaking hard
to operate 1 aircraft Honor certificate.
That's probably part of it too. Yeah.
(10:13):
I mean, I, my gut would tell me it's the challenges of Business
Today, you know, the fact that charter prices haven't really
gone up, but costs have gone up substantially.
And yeah, when you don't have any economies of scale and you
got 1 airplane and it's down because you can't find the
windshield for six months. So that puts a big strain on
these folks that are just tryingto do that.
And some of these are like, you know, carriers in Alaska and,
(10:36):
you know, air tour people. You know, actually I need to dig
and to like the detail of who itwas.
But like, look at the Grandview certificate before when you go
and look at the data, I mean, Wheels Up move those assets
pretty quickly. You know, I think they acquired
the company and within, you know, 3 or 4 month period, they
had moved them to one of the wheels up certificates and now
it's no longer, you know, present.
(10:57):
So they either surrendered it ormade it inactive.
But yeah, it's interesting to see the data and unfortunately,
this is the first time I've everseen anything like this because
the FAA doesn't just publish this.
This is something that we've hadto like manually pull month to
month to month, but we'll continue to publish it.
You know, again, it's not reallythe focus of our work, but I
think it's interesting for people to see, you know, what's
(11:18):
happening with different sized operators.
Yeah, no kidding. Well, Speaking of Wheels Up
consolidation, Wheels Up has made some positive news.
I think that that's what we could probably consider it this
week, regaining their compliancewith the with the New York Stock
Exchange. Congratulations, that's
(11:39):
exciting. Can stay in.
Public, yeah. Yeah, that's good news, I think.
Yeah, we were talking about thislast week when the news came out
and basically they need to stay above the share price of a
dollar. They had been going below a
dollar for a while and I kind ofgiggled that it's actually not a
dollar. Even if you compare it to the
(11:59):
original IPO, it'd be like $0.10equivalent.
And also kind of, it's really frustrating that no one in our
industry, it feels like is really getting much scale.
Like I guess we knew that was going to happen, but I was
telling you, like any share that's below $5 is technically
considered a penny stock. And really all of private
(12:20):
aviation at this point is treating as a penny stock, and
that's kind of sad. That's a big bummer.
We've talked a lot though that apublic markets don't understand
private aviation. I think it's still true.
I'm going to pull up here for the viewers.
I'm going to pull up the stock price of wheels up over the last
five years, which they haven't been public for five years.
(12:41):
But you can see that as of afterhours yesterday, because we're
recording this after markets closed but before they open
again at $1.62. But we can see that that has
been a pretty dramatic fall off from where they IPO.
So yeah, you've got a, you've got a story of unfortunately,
(13:06):
but aviation does not understandpublic markets don't understand
private aviation. This is maybe a bump, but you
know, it's a game of percentage and there's a lot of, there's a
lot of losses that need to be wiped out before you could start
ringing the bell on this being asuccess story.
Yeah. And I think too these markets
need to get over the fact that it is a capital intensive
(13:27):
business. There is no way around it.
Even when I look at I, I wrote some coverage on Blade a couple
years ago and I was saying they need to get their own assets
because they're not going to getthe margins they expect.
And guess what's now showing up on their balance sheet?
They've got assets coming in because they need that margin.
You know, like it's really hard to make an aviation unless you
don't own the whole, you know, process.
(13:48):
But yeah, I mean, they're makingprogress.
They actually in the first quarter and they only had
$1,000,000 in losses compared tothe previous year of 16,000,000
losses. That is still -56 million in
EBITDA for Q1 though. So little progress here.
They seem to be slimming as muchas they can.
You know, they bought the Grandview Finon through 100
(14:08):
fleet. I would like to see them make a
comeback, but man, they are turning and trying and it's
we're not there yet. Yeah, I mean, you've got you've
got Delta, which is nice. I did talk to a client at the
White Plains Regional last week and he said part of his logic of
using wheels up was that he has super duper status with Delta.
(14:30):
And he said, well, you know, it was a logical next step.
Although on the flip side, I think that there I was having an
offline conversation with somebody else about that.
We don't think that they're bothselling into the enterprise
together because we've both we both know people at different
sides of the house. Between Wheels Up and Delta,
(14:50):
you're not walking in and saying, hey, Mr. corporate
travel person misses corporate travel person.
Here is your list of options that you can use for all of your
travel services, and one of themincludes private aviation free
executives. It's like there's the Delta Rep
that walks in on a Monday and then three weeks later, the
wheels up Rep might come in and say, Hey, I know that my Delta
(15:10):
colleague was in here a few weeks ago, but did you know that
you can add on this private aviation services?
So you're not really getting, I don't know if you're getting
that economies of scale now thatcould have changed, But as of a
couple of, you know, 6-8, twelvemonths ago, I, I don't think
that that was happening. And I think that's part of the
challenge that you have in, in you're not one company, right,
(15:32):
but you but but you are, but youare, but you're not, right?
Like you're not. So how do you really integrate
those two things, but yet your customers feel like you are
because they get benefits acrossthe two networks.
I don't know. It's messy.
That is, I think that that is, at the end of the day, it's very
messy. Yeah.
Well, all that stuff, like seemsgreat in theory, but if you've
(15:53):
ever been part of like large corporations, anyone out here
who's at a large corporation will completely understand this.
I mean, the problem is these business units keep competing
with each other. In this case, they're not even
separate business units within one business.
They're totally separate businesses.
So I would have a hard time seeing, you know, everyone has
their own little domains and their own little silos, you
(16:14):
know, at Delta versus wheels up,how much are they actually able
to collaborate and work together?
Because everyone has different priorities and different KPIs
and metrics for their quarter and they don't necessarily go
together. Even though it would probably be
a great package for the consumer, it just doesn't always
work out that way. And I've seen things like that
happen first hand myself. And it's a, it's a shame.
(16:35):
It's really a shame. Yeah, well, I hope that they can
keep turning it around and that it can go parabolic.
This is not investment advice. Please don't take any of this as
investment advice. No future risk.
Nope. Indication all that good stuff.
Lawyers, please don't come afterus.
We're just two people talking about private deviation on a
podcast. It's our thinking of public
(16:56):
opinion. It is our opinion.
This is 100% opinion. We may or may not own
securities. I don't so, but anyways, the
Speaking of publicly traded companies, there's a few other
publicly traded companies that are probably celebrating a lot
of the regulatory messaging that's coming out of Washington.
Yep. Jobey and Archer seem to be
(17:16):
question mark the big winners out of the most recent
kerfuffle. And let me just pause and say
we've been a couple of months into this administration and
even from just a name, if you just say aviation standpoint, it
already feels like it's been like 20 years.
I mean, it's like stuff is happening like in left and
right. It is, it's great content
because it means that our podcast weekly has some sort of
(17:37):
regulatory government update. So for those for those that
don't know, the the the Trump administration has put out a
mandate for drone and EV tall integration.
This really comes on the heels of the modernization of the FAA
that has that the administrationrecently put out and a lot of
the language that has been signaled from the FAA, but not
(18:01):
necessarily codified in any way,shape or form.
And in a layman's terms, the Trump administration is saying,
get off your ass and get your get it in gear and start
figuring this out. And so that's what's happened.
So Jesse, what do you think? What's what do you think this
means for the future of EV talk as this podcast has been quite
up, let's say hopeful yet not optimistic about the futures of
(18:26):
it? Yeah, Yeah, I well, first of
all, unpacking this executive order was a little crazy because
first it's drones, then it's EV talls and there's just, there's
a lot packed into it. I had to talk, have a full
conversation with Grok in preparation and even at the end
of that I was like, so I'm not 100% sure where we are And so,
(18:51):
but here we are. It's being talked about, which I
guess you know, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Well, and that I kind of like for me the key points of this.
For one, you know, it's basically him saying get the
beyond visual line of sight rules figured out so people can
start doing more drone testing or, you know, expanding the
drone operations. They can do get that rule
(19:12):
published within 240 days. Seems ambitious, but maybe I
think they're even working on this, so they should have
something done. The other piece of it was the
Evie tall side and saying, you know, prioritizing, you know,
giving Evie tall regulations again, I think 240 days for them
to have a notice of proposed rulemaking like safety girl and
(19:34):
me is going huh, what like what are you talking about?
We're not going to be able to dothat that fast, you know, unless
you want. I mean, we just, we've had, you
know, air to air incidents and accidents over the last year
this. Year this year.
Year, Yeah, let's maybe like slow it down a little bit.
We're just starting. With fixed wing and vertical
lift, those two things we're notfigured out.
We haven't figured out the DC metro with those with what we
(19:56):
have currently. Right, right.
And that's, you know, got peoplein it actually paying attention.
Well, you know, supposed to be paying attention to what's going
on. But yeah, I think it's extremely
ambitious. I I'm all behind innovation and
pushing. Like, I totally agree.
The FAA tends to drag its heels and a lot of things.
It is a safety organization. So that's probably part of what,
(20:17):
you know, bureaucracy is kind oflike built in safety.
You know, the fact that it takesforever to get things done also
means you kind of have some built in protection sometimes.
But it does stifle innovation. There's an argument to be made
there. But they're also putting in the
EV tall integration pilot program.
So they're going to select at least five projects across the
United States. And this is for air mobility,
(20:37):
medical cargo and roll use. Some I, I guess it's going to be
test cases essentially where they do more studying, which
sounds interesting, but I don't know if there's so much in here.
It's also the the US made drone debacle last year.
We had the drone issues where there are all these Chinese
drones out there that have no limitations on where they can
fly. But the US manufacturers do have
(20:57):
limitations on where they can fly.
So he's trying to level the playing field.
It's a lot to unpack. And if anybody is anywhere near
this space, you'd probably need to go breathe the whole thing
because it's got a lot going on.Yeah.
And probably read it again and probably again because frankly
is now it's, it's tough. I think also I think the
(21:20):
framework has existed for a while in turn my guess I don't,
I think, I guess that the framework has existed internally
inside the FAA for some time now.
I think that they probably have it 90% of the way baked and
they've got another 10% to go. Maybe this is a stimulus to
(21:40):
like, hey, just get it done right.
I think the FAA also has a lot of other stuff that they're
needing to figure out. So I'm not sure if like
innovation is like, you know, like necessarily is that the
right thing to be on the front? I don't, again, I don't know,
don't have don't necessarily have an opinion on that.
But I think it's exciting for those companies that I think
(22:01):
that have been sitting on the sidelines, spending a lot of
money kind of spinning their wheels, not not having any idea
what they're building into. So I think frankly, you know,
you look at the companies that have survived up to this point,
you know, with a with some sort of a capital lifeline injected
(22:21):
into them, this could be very positive for them.
Now they got they're going to have to hold on and see kind of
what the framework is. But you know, Trump saying, Hey,
we want Evie talls flying like Ithink he said like next year at
in some press conference. And I was like, I don't know
about that. Yeah, we'll see.
It's ambitious, but I mean, it'snot.
I can't say it's the first time that he's said something that's
(22:43):
like. Well, and.
Then that time doesn't work. But that brings up a good point
too, because I was, I was digging deeper in this.
I'm like, OK, you know, if it, if an executive order is issued,
does that mean like the FAA is actually going to act and like
get it done? Not so much.
Like I started looking back, he had issued an order also in 2017
on UAS integration and doing thebeyond visual line of sight
(23:06):
rules. That actually is still not done.
So here we go, 2017 executive order issued, still not
completely done. A lot of it got done.
A lot of it did, but not that this time he's made things a lot
more. He's given really clear
deadlines and and focuses. So maybe that it will.
But to anyone who's kind of panda king that, you know, our
(23:27):
fly skies are going to be blackened with, you know, UA VS
and drones and who knows what take with grain of salt.
I don't think that it's going totake over like tomorrow or what,
even within the deadlines that he expects.
If I had a dollar for every timewe heard black in the skies.
And Trump, they want it done. But also, it's not like we're
giving the FAA whole bunch of new money to go out there and
(23:48):
like, innovate and do all this stuff.
So we'll see. Yep, very true.
Well, before we forget, we have to do our Mile High Madness
segment. It's my favorite segment of
every week. We do indeed, and it looks like
you have got something that is quite, quite interesting.
I enjoyed it, I love. This vacation.
But you see, yeah, slap, slap the old, slap the tire, slap the
(24:12):
tire. He's the captain.
Maybe he's got an AMP license, Yes.
Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to lie.
So to describe this scene for somebody who's seeing it for not
as many times probably as Jesse has, it looks like they're
getting on what looks to be a very old Gulfstream product.
(24:35):
Yeah, I'm going to guess G4. It's quite dirty and there is a
pilot up underneath the nose wheel with a bike pump hand
pumping the front wheel and passengers are getting on board.
Now, I'm not going to lie to you, I am going to guarantee you
(24:59):
this is not in the United Statesbecause the FAA would be so
uncool. Like even if somebody walked by,
they'd be like, no, I'm calling the FAA on you.
Like even the people who hate the FAA the most are calling the
FAA on you if you're hand pumping the front tire of your
(25:20):
goal stream. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if
this is real, if this is actually taking place somewhere.
I mean, I'm going to say like somewhere in Africa, just as the
flight attendants like had to have like a headdress kind of
thing on. I don't, I don't know if it's
real. I try to get AI to tell me if
they could find it anywhere. All I see is it's on the
Internet. But yeah, your pilot should
(25:41):
generally not be inflating the tire with a bicycle pump.
Also usually, you know, it's noteven just carbon dioxide, like
it's usually a combination of different kinds of gases.
But yeah, like not not typical generally allowed unless that
pilot is also a mechanic. Even basic stuff like that has
to be overseen by a mechanic. So if you're getting on an
(26:01):
airplane, your pilot's out there, you know, hand cranking
the the tires, I maybe wouldn't get on an airplane.
Yeah, no kidding. That's that isn't tough look,
that is a tough look. Well, I am going to pull up.
This is a little bit older of anairplane or of a of a of a
video, but I'm going to pull up this video from Jake Paul.
(26:23):
Jake Paul, for those who don't know, beat the crap out of Mike
Tyson in a fight and or is that his brother Logan Paul?
I don't know. I can't ever keep him straight.
One of them did the prime that the Gatorade substitute called
prime. They started on Vine.
For those for those people who are old enough to remember Vine
(26:43):
for those of you who are under the age of 27, Vine was TikTok
before TikTok is TikTok. I will just tell you that it was
way better, but here we are. That's me sounding like an old
person. This is Jake Paul in front of
his global. It is, I believe, a global XRS
if I remember correctly, and he's doing hand stands.
(27:06):
He said he went global, he's laying on the bed, etcetera, you
know, talking about this. Wow.
Well, we, it's, it's pretty solid, right?
Jake Paul, congratulations on your global.
Here's the problem. Now, this is an Instagram story
that went away. But one of his friends who was
invited on the jet, unfortunately doxed his tail
(27:28):
number in his Instagram story, which is how I figured out what
the airplane was. Basically, he's in front of Jake
Paul. Jake Paul's Instagram did not
have the tail number in it, but his friend who was with him was
like, Oh yeah, thanks Jake for inviting me.
Pans across the airplane and pops the tail number.
Perky mistake. Rookie mistake if that if you
get invited on your friend's jet, please make sure that you
(27:51):
don't show the tail number. Yeah, it is.
It's bad. It's bad move.
It's just a bad move. Like at any point, if you're
going to post a picture, make sure that it is approved by the
person who paid for the jet and if and just check with them.
It is just good etiquette. It's just good at.
Permission. Don't sit in the VIP seat
(28:12):
because that's the rudest thing you can do.
That's exactly when I was at White.
When I was at White Plains last week though, I did sit in the
VIP seat on the G600. Quite nice I will say there.
You go. The one thing I will note from
that video though, is he made that magnum of Uclico look like
a normal bottle of champagne. And then to see him actually
laying in the bed very comfortably, I'm like, looks,
(28:35):
looks quite comfortable for a large person.
We talked about this like a weekago about how the tall guys go
for the global. So maybe there's something to
it. That's exactly right.
Here we are so tall guys. Go global.
Once again, it's supporting the theory from my XDMS.
So that is my Mile High segment.Congratulations Jake Paul on
your jet and keep more jets on social media.
(28:56):
And please don't post any bad information like that.
You're flying for free because you tried out your jet.
We just all know that it's not. Yeah, no, we do.
All right. Well, so our last story of the
day, again, you know, the administration is really into
aviation, which actually I love.You know, at least it's getting
some attention and some excitement.
People want to do things. That's great.
(29:17):
But he wants to make us go supersonic again.
So Trump has said, you know, at the FAA needs to dismantle the
1973 ban on supersonic flight over the country.
I meant I'm all for it because Icannot wait to get myself on a
supersonic jet. Yeah, I'm not going to lie to
you. Now if the boom can be heard on
the ground, that's probably a no, no, Although I'll say I
(29:42):
witnessed one, an accidental oneone time from like kind of long
my way. I mean it's loud but it like
wasn't. That bad?
Yeah. Granted, you know, we, we don't
want obviously, you know, you'resitting at, you're sitting at
brunch on a rooftop bar on a Saturday with all your friends,
beautiful day. And then all of a sudden it's
(30:02):
like the earth, the ground starts shaking and you're like,
your mimosa spills and you're like, no.
See the aviation nerds like us? It'd be like, yeah.
Exactly. It's like, it's like when the
Blue Angels fly by, it's like, yeah, I'm here in the Panhandle
of Florida. So I'm like constantly like, are
they out here? So but yeah, I think this is net
(30:25):
positive though. I mean, look, regulations that
make this is, in my opinion, this is one of those that really
doesn't make sense. If you can't hear it on the
ground, I don't see what the problem is.
Now I could be proven wrong. And if I can get proven wrong, I
I will change my opinion if it disrupts other things.
If you could hear it on another airplane, right, like maybe
(30:47):
you're flying at 30,000 and they're at 45,000 and they boom
over top you and it's like, you know, that would be scary.
But like, like, let let them RIP.
I think, too, there's got to be some way around this.
Like, do we do, you know, have like a supersonic location where
if you want to do, you know, over the sea, maybe it's not New
York City, maybe it's like rightoutside of it.
(31:09):
And I don't know, some former military base, I don't know.
There's got to be some way around this.
I mean, I want to go, so I don'treally care.
We need to figure it out, but we'll see.
I mean, he's saying that they need to work on it again.
This was something that he wanted done in 2018, and the FAA
did not remove a ban on it. There was not specific language
(31:29):
at that time about the ban. This time, he said within 18
months, we need to notice a proposed rulemaking.
By 2027, he wants to see supersonic flight across the
United States. So we'll see.
You know, I don't know, There's new technology.
This is a really, really, reallyold rule.
To just ban it outright seems a little silly.
(31:50):
You know, let's use rules. Based.
It makes sense before we could get high enough, right?
Like if you can't get high enough, like pressurization,
technology's not there yet. Like, it makes sense.
I don't think it makes sense. Now, here's my favorite thing
is, there's only one company that's really getting after it
on supersonic travel publicly. Now, there may be some others
(32:10):
that are like secretly trying todo it, but Boom Supersonic is
very outspoken and very loud about going supersonic.
My favorite part about the Boom story is the fact that before
founding Boom Supersonic, Blake Scholl was the senior director
of Smart Deals, Relevance and Personalization at Groupon.
(32:30):
He was like, he was a senior director at a coupon website
before he started this company. And he literally made a tweet, I
don't know, a couple of months ago.
And it was like, you can just dothings.
And he is literally proof that you can just do things.
So if you have an idea and you're like, I want to
eventually get the president of the United States to listen to
(32:52):
me when I'm trying to do something and you're a senior
director of smart deals at a coupon website, you can do it
Like is evidence that you could do it so.
That's amazing, I've never heard.
That yeah. So I'm personally super stoked
for for supersonic travel. Blake, if you are on X and I
(33:12):
know I'm going to sound, I soundlike an X fanboy.
If you are on X Blake is very responsive on X.
So if you want to like chat withhim not in DMS but publicly, he
usually reprise group on tweets,which is pretty cool.
And one last little bit, it would be miss of us to not
mention the fallout after our last episode.
Speaking of X and the governmentof Elon and Donald Trump.
(33:34):
We didn't plan to talk about this news story, but I feel like
people are going to be like, whydidn't you talk?
About it we're not. Talking about it because no one
knows what happened, and until we find out, that's when we'll
talk about it. I mean, I'm pretty sure that
Isaac Man, you know, them choosing to kick on Isaac Man
was just like. The straw.
That broke the camel's back. Yeah, it had a huge, it had a
(33:55):
huge piece to do. And that's that's what the the
rumbling on Twitter is that thatwas kind of the straw that broke
the camel's back. I will say this, the response
has not been fantastic from a publicity standpoint.
But you know what? You've got two guys who really
do not give a crap about what people think.
And it makes for DAG on good TV,I'll tell you that.
(34:16):
I'm enjoying it. I, I love the chaos and the
intrigue and not only between the two of them, but all these
like executive orders coming out.
It's like we're shaking it up. I'm a little bit scared, but
hope it all works out at the end.
Just keep in mind for anyone panicking out there, like it's
kind of the same thing he did last time.
You know, the executive orders start flying, boom, boom, boom,
(34:38):
boom. What actually comes out in the
mix? We're not going to know, but
just just take it day by day. That's all I can tell you.
Yep. To wrap it back to Blake, Blake
Schroll had a tweet on February 10th that's currently on his
profile talking about the boomless cruise, supersonic
flights up to 50% faster with noaudible Sonic boom.
So they demoed their flight 3 times and they have figured it
(35:00):
out. So probably what happened is
they figured it out. And when they figured it out,
they said, hey, we, we figured this out, you should do it.
And then now it's let's leave again.
So I'm excited. Sign me up.
I'll tell you that pretty early.Maybe not the first one, but
sign me up. Pretty early for for getting on
a boob supersonic. Flight.
I pay a lot of money to get to Europe in a couple hours.
(35:22):
That would be amazing. It would be awesome.
Well, I think that that wraps itup.
If you are finishing your commute, I hope that you get a
great day of work in and that maybe if you're sitting in your
dead end job as a senior productmanager at a coupon website,
that maybe someday you too can get rules changed and with the
FAA. So go get out there and kill it.
(35:44):
I love it. Don't forget to subscribe to our
newsletter and we'll see you next time on the VI PS.
Good morning and welcome to the VIP Seat.
Today is June 10th. I'm your host Jesse New York and
our Co host today, Preston Holland is at the beach and
still committed to doing a podcast today.
So kudos to Preston and we hope you're enjoying yourself a
little bit. I am at the beach, enjoying
myself, enjoying the sun, and I'm wearing my airplane shirt.
This is by Sporty's. This is a free plug.
(00:22):
This was not a paid endorsement,but it's one of my favorite
shirts so I decided to wear it today.
And you know you can always sponsor the VIP seat too, so
sporty is a wink wink and a nod nod.
That's true. That's very true.
Well, I guess we should probablybuckle up and jump right in.
Yep. All right.
So in the new news this week, itseems like there's some merger
acquisition activity. ATI Jet, which owns 26 aircraft,
(00:45):
I believe they own, I don't think they lease, not totally
sure on that, but a pretty largefleet of Leer 55 and Leer 60
jets. I'm the entrepreneur Matt
O'Hare, who was the founder of Vital Farms.
If anyone I've ever seen the eggpackages, it's got nice
packaging. You know your organic pasture
eggs is now getting into the aviation aviation business.
So welcome, Matt, and buckle up.It is a tale as old as time.
(01:09):
Jesse, you know what they say the best way to make $1,000,000
in private aviation is to start with a billion.
You know, I congratulations. I hope that it's AI hope it's a
great endeavour. I think that it's interesting
because it is, it is an M and a activity, right?
So it's, it's buying an existingbusiness as opposed to starting
one from scratch or you know, raising a bunch of money and
(01:32):
which is I think, I think what we've seen a lot more in the
last couple of years. And so it's interesting to see
kind of purchasing and and I would not call this it is
private equity, but I would not call this a private equity
buyout percent. Yeah, and I pulled a Preston
this week because I know you like to look at the timelines
and dates and all that stuff. But apparently Mr. O'Hare, you
(01:53):
know, they went public in July of 2020.
He stepped into an executive chairman role at that time.
And here we are almost five years later to the dot after
that happened and he's starting a new venture.
So I have to wonder, you know, was there some earn out
involves, you know, some gettingbored and wanting to get back
in? Business vesting schedules.
Vesting schedules are real and you would know this.
(02:15):
You've had an exit and you didn't have a vesting schedule.
So vesting schedules are real. It's AI think that it's a it's
an interesting timeline. But you know what, He was
probably a connoisseur is my guess of the public cover, a
chairman of the public company, probably a connoisseur of
private aviation and said, hey, I can make this better.
And I hope for his sake, and forour sake, that he does make it
(02:36):
better. I hope so too.
My only concern, you know, as someone who was all about buying
new aircraft because of efficiency, I look at the makeup
of the fleet and it's, you know,lira 55 lira 60s from all the
way back to 1984 is one of the oldest and 2005 is the newest in
fleet. Old fleet.
Maybe their plan is to modernize.
(02:58):
I would, I feel like it would bedifficult to make too much money
on a fleet that old just becauseof dispatch reliability, you
know? And a lot of people don't like
Learjets anymore, unfortunately.Yeah, I, I think probably the
play and this is complete armchair quarterback like
speculation. There's absolutely no like
(03:19):
actually I don't, I have no insider information.
So to be clear, but here's my guess is the strategy as you
walk in, you say, look, we're going to part out the bottom end
of the fleet because 1984 is that plane should should have
been put to pasture probably in 2020-2021.
It is still still holding on, still holding on baby.
So call JSSI say, hey, I got this airplane.
(03:41):
How much will you give it for meor give me for it and parted out
and then probably start looking at acquiring other aircraft now
a lot of the same type. It helps you with pilots.
I mean, you know this we talked about this the Southwest model,
but I think that the leer is I think today with you know with
dispatch reliability, I'm just not sure you can make a ton of
(04:04):
money on the airframe long term and how do you scale out of
those are the things that I'd start asking.
Yeah, I mean your field burns too high, your parts are old and
hard to find. I mean, it just, it starts to
get harder and harder. They they are changing the name
ATI Jet is going to become Jetvia or is already becoming
Jetvia at this point. And their goal they say is to
become the leader in retail fractional jet cart mid size
(04:28):
aircraft. So I mean, they're going to
stick with the mids. It'll be curious to see what
alternative, you know, I think everybody wants your Challenger
3 feet is in that super mid category.
But we'll see where they end up I guess.
There's a bunch of Hawker 909 Fifties for sale if you're
trying to stay in the older aircraft airframe market, I
guess other than that, you've got the Excel and the XLS and
(04:50):
those are, you know, they're competitive aircraft.
Yeah, I mean, and The thing is too just, you know, net jets
started this, but if your aircraft is not 15 over 20 years
or younger, it's really hard to get a certain kind of charter
clients, especially like large flight departments, you know,
Fortune 500 CE OS. They don't like those little
(05:10):
planes. Not to say there isn't, you
know, maybe a market out there, but I don't know.
I say if it was me, upgrade as soon as you can.
Maybe that's the plan. No kidding.
I think that this is maybe maybeit's a signal that M&A activity
is going to re wake up because frankly a lot of the capital
activity, the publicly announcedcapital activity because there
(05:34):
is some capital activity that's gone on in the background that I
think hasn't gone a lot of reporting.
And I'm not going to out them because you know part of getting
confidential sources is not outing them.
But I know there's been some capital raising going on in the
background. But I think this is probably a
signal that for the first time since I think Doug Golan talked
about this in his article, but you know, really since 2023 that
(05:56):
we've really seen this type of activity, you know, your wheels
up restructure, you've had a couple of other, you know, kind
of pseudo restructuring events. But not like it's not
necessarily been like positive news, if you will, right?
This is probably the first time that we've seen a real positive,
you know, outlook from, from an acquirer.
Yeah, well, I love, I love the concept.
I think you've got, you know, successful entrepreneur.
(06:18):
Aviation is a complicated business, but it's not something
that someone can't learn, especially if they've scaled,
you know, to the point that he'sscaled before.
So we'll see how it goes. I wish him luck.
And I guess Jed Via will be someone to keep an eye on over
the next few years. Yeah.
I mean, there's been some, some consolidation.
Another consolidation moment wasa couple of months ago before we
(06:39):
had restarted the show, the Fly USA purchased a small PC12
operator out of Tampa and consolidated that.
So that's been a little bit of also M&A activity that's
happened this year. And yeah, but you, you had
uncovered, which brings us to our next door.
You had uncovered, you sent me atext that said the Jews found
some data that was interesting, kind of in the bot.
The bot. Yeah.
(07:00):
So if people don't know, you know, part of what I do on the
day-to-day is the Private Aviation Safety Alliance.
It's a nonprofit data website. We're trying to uncover for
consumers, you know, informationabout private jet operators, you
know, who's got accident records, who doesn't.
But ancillary to that, because we're aggregating so much data,
so much information on 135 certificates in particular,
(07:22):
we're starting to notice an interesting trend.
And this last month in particular, there was a big drop
off in small operators and that's anyone, well single
aircraft operators. So for some reason and you know
sometimes this is the FAA kind of catching up on their work,
but we're seeing, you know a 6 to 7% decline in single aircraft
(07:42):
operators from the beginning of the year to today.
So, you know, 40 something operators have either
surrendered or certificate had it revoked.
I'm not totally sure what's going on.
The other segments seem to kind of be staying the same, but your
large operators, 10 or more fleets, they're kind of staying
the same. The 2 to 9 has declined just a
little bit over the last six months.
(08:03):
But I've kind of scratched my head.
Is it, is it acquisitions? Is it people kind of throwing in
the towel because the market's been tough, you know, the last
year or two? I'm not quite sure.
Yeah. One thing that I think is
interesting, some conversations that I had a couple of years ago
was that you have these, you have these, this, these groups
coming in and doing M&A activity.
(08:23):
And I'm going to name some specifically you have wheels up
make purchasing a lot of operators that have 135
certificates. You had Volato who purchased a
few 135 certificates in kind of their acquisition.
Now fly USA, not to put them in the same group, but they had a
mergers and acquisition activityand you know they will likely
start putting them on one certificate.
(08:46):
There's not an advantage to having two certificates other
than just incremental overhead and incremental headache,
frankly, like dealing with the FAA.
And so I think maybe what we're seeing is what I would imagine
this is. There's probably a long tail
from the mergers and acquisitions activity that
happened during 2020 to 2025. I mean, you think about
(09:09):
Grandview, right, which hits close to home.
That certificate probably bounced around and then it got
to wheels up and it's like wheels up doesn't need the
certificate. So they're just going to let it
fade out after they kind of pickand choose, pick the pieces off
that they need and then let the certificate go back to the FAA.
So I wonder if some of it is that type of activity.
But really if it was that type of activity, I think you'd see a
(09:32):
lot more in the upper end because those are the ones that
are getting consolidated. Yeah, the twos and nines.
Yeah, yeah, You would think thatthe twos and nines, you'd have
certain ones that would be now qualified in the 10 plus and
then the 10 plus, you know, A10 plus for those that have it is
actually a pretty solid asset tohave on your balance sheet.
I know one recently that transacted for a pretty large
(09:53):
sum of money justice certificate.
But the, you know, the 2:00 to 9:00 you kind of see maybe some
drop off the one I think maybe it's it private, private
individuals who said, oh, I'm just going to get a certificate
and throw it on my own certificate.
I I mean, I don't know, I think it's just really freaking hard
to operate 1 aircraft Honor certificate.
That's probably part of it too. Yeah.
(10:13):
I mean, I, my gut would tell me it's the challenges of Business
Today, you know, the fact that charter prices haven't really
gone up, but costs have gone up substantially.
And yeah, when you don't have any economies of scale and you
got 1 airplane and it's down because you can't find the
windshield for six months. So that puts a big strain on
these folks that are just tryingto do that.
And some of these are like, you know, carriers in Alaska and,
(10:36):
you know, air tour people. You know, actually I need to dig
and to like the detail of who itwas.
But like, look at the Grandview certificate before when you go
and look at the data, I mean, Wheels Up move those assets
pretty quickly. You know, I think they acquired
the company and within, you know, 3 or 4 month period, they
had moved them to one of the wheels up certificates and now
it's no longer, you know, present.
(10:57):
So they either surrendered it ormade it inactive.
But yeah, it's interesting to see the data and unfortunately,
this is the first time I've everseen anything like this because
the FAA doesn't just publish this.
This is something that we've hadto like manually pull month to
month to month, but we'll continue to publish it.
You know, again, it's not reallythe focus of our work, but I
think it's interesting for people to see, you know, what's
(11:18):
happening with different sized operators.
Yeah, no kidding. Well, Speaking of Wheels Up
consolidation, Wheels Up has made some positive news.
I think that that's what we could probably consider it this
week, regaining their compliancewith the with the New York Stock
Exchange. Congratulations, that's
(11:39):
exciting. Can stay in.
Public, yeah. Yeah, that's good news, I think.
Yeah, we were talking about thislast week when the news came out
and basically they need to stay above the share price of a
dollar. They had been going below a
dollar for a while and I kind ofgiggled that it's actually not a
dollar. Even if you compare it to the
(11:59):
original IPO, it'd be like $0.10equivalent.
And also kind of, it's really frustrating that no one in our
industry, it feels like is really getting much scale.
Like I guess we knew that was going to happen, but I was
telling you, like any share that's below $5 is technically
considered a penny stock. And really all of private
(12:20):
aviation at this point is treating as a penny stock, and
that's kind of sad. That's a big bummer.
We've talked a lot though that apublic markets don't understand
private aviation. I think it's still true.
I'm going to pull up here for the viewers.
I'm going to pull up the stock price of wheels up over the last
five years, which they haven't been public for five years.
(12:41):
But you can see that as of afterhours yesterday, because we're
recording this after markets closed but before they open
again at $1.62. But we can see that that has
been a pretty dramatic fall off from where they IPO.
So yeah, you've got a, you've got a story of unfortunately,
(13:06):
but aviation does not understandpublic markets don't understand
private aviation. This is maybe a bump, but you
know, it's a game of percentage and there's a lot of, there's a
lot of losses that need to be wiped out before you could start
ringing the bell on this being asuccess story.
Yeah. And I think too these markets
need to get over the fact that it is a capital intensive
(13:27):
business. There is no way around it.
Even when I look at I, I wrote some coverage on Blade a couple
years ago and I was saying they need to get their own assets
because they're not going to getthe margins they expect.
And guess what's now showing up on their balance sheet?
They've got assets coming in because they need that margin.
You know, like it's really hard to make an aviation unless you
don't own the whole, you know, process.
(13:48):
But yeah, I mean, they're makingprogress.
They actually in the first quarter and they only had
$1,000,000 in losses compared tothe previous year of 16,000,000
losses. That is still -56 million in
EBITDA for Q1 though. So little progress here.
They seem to be slimming as muchas they can.
You know, they bought the Grandview Finon through 100
(14:08):
fleet. I would like to see them make a
comeback, but man, they are turning and trying and it's
we're not there yet. Yeah, I mean, you've got you've
got Delta, which is nice. I did talk to a client at the
White Plains Regional last week and he said part of his logic of
using wheels up was that he has super duper status with Delta.
(14:30):
And he said, well, you know, it was a logical next step.
Although on the flip side, I think that there I was having an
offline conversation with somebody else about that.
We don't think that they're bothselling into the enterprise
together because we've both we both know people at different
sides of the house. Between Wheels Up and Delta,
(14:50):
you're not walking in and saying, hey, Mr. corporate
travel person misses corporate travel person.
Here is your list of options that you can use for all of your
travel services, and one of themincludes private aviation free
executives. It's like there's the Delta Rep
that walks in on a Monday and then three weeks later, the
wheels up Rep might come in and say, Hey, I know that my Delta
(15:10):
colleague was in here a few weeks ago, but did you know that
you can add on this private aviation services?
So you're not really getting, I don't know if you're getting
that economies of scale now thatcould have changed, But as of a
couple of, you know, 6-8, twelvemonths ago, I, I don't think
that that was happening. And I think that's part of the
challenge that you have in, in you're not one company, right,
(15:32):
but you but but you are, but youare, but you're not, right?
Like you're not. So how do you really integrate
those two things, but yet your customers feel like you are
because they get benefits acrossthe two networks.
I don't know. It's messy.
That is, I think that that is, at the end of the day, it's very
messy. Yeah.
Well, all that stuff, like seemsgreat in theory, but if you've
(15:53):
ever been part of like large corporations, anyone out here
who's at a large corporation will completely understand this.
I mean, the problem is these business units keep competing
with each other. In this case, they're not even
separate business units within one business.
They're totally separate businesses.
So I would have a hard time seeing, you know, everyone has
their own little domains and their own little silos, you
(16:14):
know, at Delta versus wheels up,how much are they actually able
to collaborate and work together?
Because everyone has different priorities and different KPIs
and metrics for their quarter and they don't necessarily go
together. Even though it would probably be
a great package for the consumer, it just doesn't always
work out that way. And I've seen things like that
happen first hand myself. And it's a, it's a shame.
(16:35):
It's really a shame. Yeah, well, I hope that they can
keep turning it around and that it can go parabolic.
This is not investment advice. Please don't take any of this as
investment advice. No future risk.
Nope. Indication all that good stuff.
Lawyers, please don't come afterus.
We're just two people talking about private deviation on a
podcast. It's our thinking of public
(16:56):
opinion. It is our opinion.
This is 100% opinion. We may or may not own
securities. I don't so, but anyways, the
Speaking of publicly traded companies, there's a few other
publicly traded companies that are probably celebrating a lot
of the regulatory messaging that's coming out of Washington.
Yep. Jobey and Archer seem to be
(17:16):
question mark the big winners out of the most recent
kerfuffle. And let me just pause and say
we've been a couple of months into this administration and
even from just a name, if you just say aviation standpoint, it
already feels like it's been like 20 years.
I mean, it's like stuff is happening like in left and
right. It is, it's great content
because it means that our podcast weekly has some sort of
(17:37):
regulatory government update. So for those for those that
don't know, the the the Trump administration has put out a
mandate for drone and EV tall integration.
This really comes on the heels of the modernization of the FAA
that has that the administrationrecently put out and a lot of
the language that has been signaled from the FAA, but not
(18:01):
necessarily codified in any way,shape or form.
And in a layman's terms, the Trump administration is saying,
get off your ass and get your get it in gear and start
figuring this out. And so that's what's happened.
So Jesse, what do you think? What's what do you think this
means for the future of EV talk as this podcast has been quite
up, let's say hopeful yet not optimistic about the futures of
(18:26):
it? Yeah, Yeah, I well, first of
all, unpacking this executive order was a little crazy because
first it's drones, then it's EV talls and there's just, there's
a lot packed into it. I had to talk, have a full
conversation with Grok in preparation and even at the end
of that I was like, so I'm not 100% sure where we are And so,
(18:51):
but here we are. It's being talked about, which I
guess you know, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Well, and that I kind of like for me the key points of this.
For one, you know, it's basically him saying get the
beyond visual line of sight rules figured out so people can
start doing more drone testing or, you know, expanding the
drone operations. They can do get that rule
(19:12):
published within 240 days. Seems ambitious, but maybe I
think they're even working on this, so they should have
something done. The other piece of it was the
Evie tall side and saying, you know, prioritizing, you know,
giving Evie tall regulations again, I think 240 days for them
to have a notice of proposed rulemaking like safety girl and
(19:34):
me is going huh, what like what are you talking about?
We're not going to be able to dothat that fast, you know, unless
you want. I mean, we just, we've had, you
know, air to air incidents and accidents over the last year
this. Year this year.
Year, Yeah, let's maybe like slow it down a little bit.
We're just starting. With fixed wing and vertical
lift, those two things we're notfigured out.
We haven't figured out the DC metro with those with what we
(19:56):
have currently. Right, right.
And that's, you know, got peoplein it actually paying attention.
Well, you know, supposed to be paying attention to what's going
on. But yeah, I think it's extremely
ambitious. I I'm all behind innovation and
pushing. Like, I totally agree.
The FAA tends to drag its heels and a lot of things.
It is a safety organization. So that's probably part of what,
(20:17):
you know, bureaucracy is kind oflike built in safety.
You know, the fact that it takesforever to get things done also
means you kind of have some built in protection sometimes.
But it does stifle innovation. There's an argument to be made
there. But they're also putting in the
EV tall integration pilot program.
So they're going to select at least five projects across the
United States. And this is for air mobility,
(20:37):
medical cargo and roll use. Some I, I guess it's going to be
test cases essentially where they do more studying, which
sounds interesting, but I don't know if there's so much in here.
It's also the the US made drone debacle last year.
We had the drone issues where there are all these Chinese
drones out there that have no limitations on where they can
fly. But the US manufacturers do have
(20:57):
limitations on where they can fly.
So he's trying to level the playing field.
It's a lot to unpack. And if anybody is anywhere near
this space, you'd probably need to go breathe the whole thing
because it's got a lot going on.Yeah.
And probably read it again and probably again because frankly
is now it's, it's tough. I think also I think the
(21:20):
framework has existed for a while in turn my guess I don't,
I think, I guess that the framework has existed internally
inside the FAA for some time now.
I think that they probably have it 90% of the way baked and
they've got another 10% to go. Maybe this is a stimulus to
(21:40):
like, hey, just get it done right.
I think the FAA also has a lot of other stuff that they're
needing to figure out. So I'm not sure if like
innovation is like, you know, like necessarily is that the
right thing to be on the front? I don't, again, I don't know,
don't have don't necessarily have an opinion on that.
But I think it's exciting for those companies that I think
(22:01):
that have been sitting on the sidelines, spending a lot of
money kind of spinning their wheels, not not having any idea
what they're building into. So I think frankly, you know,
you look at the companies that have survived up to this point,
you know, with a with some sort of a capital lifeline injected
(22:21):
into them, this could be very positive for them.
Now they got they're going to have to hold on and see kind of
what the framework is. But you know, Trump saying, Hey,
we want Evie talls flying like Ithink he said like next year at
in some press conference. And I was like, I don't know
about that. Yeah, we'll see.
It's ambitious, but I mean, it'snot.
I can't say it's the first time that he's said something that's
(22:43):
like. Well, and.
Then that time doesn't work. But that brings up a good point
too, because I was, I was digging deeper in this.
I'm like, OK, you know, if it, if an executive order is issued,
does that mean like the FAA is actually going to act and like
get it done? Not so much.
Like I started looking back, he had issued an order also in 2017
on UAS integration and doing thebeyond visual line of sight
(23:06):
rules. That actually is still not done.
So here we go, 2017 executive order issued, still not
completely done. A lot of it got done.
A lot of it did, but not that this time he's made things a lot
more. He's given really clear
deadlines and and focuses. So maybe that it will.
But to anyone who's kind of panda king that, you know, our
(23:27):
fly skies are going to be blackened with, you know, UA VS
and drones and who knows what take with grain of salt.
I don't think that it's going totake over like tomorrow or what,
even within the deadlines that he expects.
If I had a dollar for every timewe heard black in the skies.
And Trump, they want it done. But also, it's not like we're
giving the FAA whole bunch of new money to go out there and
(23:48):
like, innovate and do all this stuff.
So we'll see. Yep, very true.
Well, before we forget, we have to do our Mile High Madness
segment. It's my favorite segment of
every week. We do indeed, and it looks like
you have got something that is quite, quite interesting.
I enjoyed it, I love. This vacation.
But you see, yeah, slap, slap the old, slap the tire, slap the
(24:12):
tire. He's the captain.
Maybe he's got an AMP license, Yes.
Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to lie.
So to describe this scene for somebody who's seeing it for not
as many times probably as Jesse has, it looks like they're
getting on what looks to be a very old Gulfstream product.
(24:35):
Yeah, I'm going to guess G4. It's quite dirty and there is a
pilot up underneath the nose wheel with a bike pump hand
pumping the front wheel and passengers are getting on board.
Now, I'm not going to lie to you, I am going to guarantee you
(24:59):
this is not in the United Statesbecause the FAA would be so
uncool. Like even if somebody walked by,
they'd be like, no, I'm calling the FAA on you.
Like even the people who hate the FAA the most are calling the
FAA on you if you're hand pumping the front tire of your
(25:20):
goal stream. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if
this is real, if this is actually taking place somewhere.
I mean, I'm going to say like somewhere in Africa, just as the
flight attendants like had to have like a headdress kind of
thing on. I don't, I don't know if it's
real. I try to get AI to tell me if
they could find it anywhere. All I see is it's on the
Internet. But yeah, your pilot should
(25:41):
generally not be inflating the tire with a bicycle pump.
Also usually, you know, it's noteven just carbon dioxide, like
it's usually a combination of different kinds of gases.
But yeah, like not not typical generally allowed unless that
pilot is also a mechanic. Even basic stuff like that has
to be overseen by a mechanic. So if you're getting on an
(26:01):
airplane, your pilot's out there, you know, hand cranking
the the tires, I maybe wouldn't get on an airplane.
Yeah, no kidding. That's that isn't tough look,
that is a tough look. Well, I am going to pull up.
This is a little bit older of anairplane or of a of a of a
video, but I'm going to pull up this video from Jake Paul.
(26:23):
Jake Paul, for those who don't know, beat the crap out of Mike
Tyson in a fight and or is that his brother Logan Paul?
I don't know. I can't ever keep him straight.
One of them did the prime that the Gatorade substitute called
prime. They started on Vine.
For those for those people who are old enough to remember Vine
(26:43):
for those of you who are under the age of 27, Vine was TikTok
before TikTok is TikTok. I will just tell you that it was
way better, but here we are. That's me sounding like an old
person. This is Jake Paul in front of
his global. It is, I believe, a global XRS
if I remember correctly, and he's doing hand stands.
(27:06):
He said he went global, he's laying on the bed, etcetera, you
know, talking about this. Wow.
Well, we, it's, it's pretty solid, right?
Jake Paul, congratulations on your global.
Here's the problem. Now, this is an Instagram story
that went away. But one of his friends who was
invited on the jet, unfortunately doxed his tail
(27:28):
number in his Instagram story, which is how I figured out what
the airplane was. Basically, he's in front of Jake
Paul. Jake Paul's Instagram did not
have the tail number in it, but his friend who was with him was
like, Oh yeah, thanks Jake for inviting me.
Pans across the airplane and pops the tail number.
Perky mistake. Rookie mistake if that if you
get invited on your friend's jet, please make sure that you
(27:51):
don't show the tail number. Yeah, it is.
It's bad. It's bad move.
It's just a bad move. Like at any point, if you're
going to post a picture, make sure that it is approved by the
person who paid for the jet and if and just check with them.
It is just good etiquette. It's just good at.
Permission. Don't sit in the VIP seat
(28:12):
because that's the rudest thing you can do.
That's exactly when I was at White.
When I was at White Plains last week though, I did sit in the
VIP seat on the G600. Quite nice I will say there.
You go. The one thing I will note from
that video though, is he made that magnum of Uclico look like
a normal bottle of champagne. And then to see him actually
laying in the bed very comfortably, I'm like, looks,
(28:35):
looks quite comfortable for a large person.
We talked about this like a weekago about how the tall guys go
for the global. So maybe there's something to
it. That's exactly right.
Here we are so tall guys. Go global.
Once again, it's supporting the theory from my XDMS.
So that is my Mile High segment.Congratulations Jake Paul on
your jet and keep more jets on social media.
(28:56):
And please don't post any bad information like that.
You're flying for free because you tried out your jet.
We just all know that it's not. Yeah, no, we do.
All right. Well, so our last story of the
day, again, you know, the administration is really into
aviation, which actually I love.You know, at least it's getting
some attention and some excitement.
People want to do things. That's great.
(29:17):
But he wants to make us go supersonic again.
So Trump has said, you know, at the FAA needs to dismantle the
1973 ban on supersonic flight over the country.
I meant I'm all for it because Icannot wait to get myself on a
supersonic jet. Yeah, I'm not going to lie to
you. Now if the boom can be heard on
the ground, that's probably a no, no, Although I'll say I
(29:42):
witnessed one, an accidental oneone time from like kind of long
my way. I mean it's loud but it like
wasn't. That bad?
Yeah. Granted, you know, we, we don't
want obviously, you know, you'resitting at, you're sitting at
brunch on a rooftop bar on a Saturday with all your friends,
beautiful day. And then all of a sudden it's
(30:02):
like the earth, the ground starts shaking and you're like,
your mimosa spills and you're like, no.
See the aviation nerds like us? It'd be like, yeah.
Exactly. It's like, it's like when the
Blue Angels fly by, it's like, yeah, I'm here in the Panhandle
of Florida. So I'm like constantly like, are
they out here? So but yeah, I think this is net
(30:25):
positive though. I mean, look, regulations that
make this is, in my opinion, this is one of those that really
doesn't make sense. If you can't hear it on the
ground, I don't see what the problem is.
Now I could be proven wrong. And if I can get proven wrong, I
I will change my opinion if it disrupts other things.
If you could hear it on another airplane, right, like maybe
(30:47):
you're flying at 30,000 and they're at 45,000 and they boom
over top you and it's like, you know, that would be scary.
But like, like, let let them RIP.
I think, too, there's got to be some way around this.
Like, do we do, you know, have like a supersonic location where
if you want to do, you know, over the sea, maybe it's not New
York City, maybe it's like rightoutside of it.
(31:09):
And I don't know, some former military base, I don't know.
There's got to be some way around this.
I mean, I want to go, so I don'treally care.
We need to figure it out, but we'll see.
I mean, he's saying that they need to work on it again.
This was something that he wanted done in 2018, and the FAA
did not remove a ban on it. There was not specific language
(31:29):
at that time about the ban. This time, he said within 18
months, we need to notice a proposed rulemaking.
By 2027, he wants to see supersonic flight across the
United States. So we'll see.
You know, I don't know, There's new technology.
This is a really, really, reallyold rule.
To just ban it outright seems a little silly.
(31:50):
You know, let's use rules. Based.
It makes sense before we could get high enough, right?
Like if you can't get high enough, like pressurization,
technology's not there yet. Like, it makes sense.
I don't think it makes sense. Now, here's my favorite thing
is, there's only one company that's really getting after it
on supersonic travel publicly. Now, there may be some others
(32:10):
that are like secretly trying todo it, but Boom Supersonic is
very outspoken and very loud about going supersonic.
My favorite part about the Boom story is the fact that before
founding Boom Supersonic, Blake Scholl was the senior director
of Smart Deals, Relevance and Personalization at Groupon.
(32:30):
He was like, he was a senior director at a coupon website
before he started this company. And he literally made a tweet, I
don't know, a couple of months ago.
And it was like, you can just dothings.
And he is literally proof that you can just do things.
So if you have an idea and you're like, I want to
eventually get the president of the United States to listen to
(32:52):
me when I'm trying to do something and you're a senior
director of smart deals at a coupon website, you can do it
Like is evidence that you could do it so.
That's amazing, I've never heard.
That yeah. So I'm personally super stoked
for for supersonic travel. Blake, if you are on X and I
(33:12):
know I'm going to sound, I soundlike an X fanboy.
If you are on X Blake is very responsive on X.
So if you want to like chat withhim not in DMS but publicly, he
usually reprise group on tweets,which is pretty cool.
And one last little bit, it would be miss of us to not
mention the fallout after our last episode.
Speaking of X and the governmentof Elon and Donald Trump.
(33:34):
We didn't plan to talk about this news story, but I feel like
people are going to be like, whydidn't you talk?
About it we're not. Talking about it because no one
knows what happened, and until we find out, that's when we'll
talk about it. I mean, I'm pretty sure that
Isaac Man, you know, them choosing to kick on Isaac Man
was just like. The straw.
That broke the camel's back. Yeah, it had a huge, it had a
(33:55):
huge piece to do. And that's that's what the the
rumbling on Twitter is that thatwas kind of the straw that broke
the camel's back. I will say this, the response
has not been fantastic from a publicity standpoint.
But you know what? You've got two guys who really
do not give a crap about what people think.
And it makes for DAG on good TV,I'll tell you that.
(34:16):
I'm enjoying it. I, I love the chaos and the
intrigue and not only between the two of them, but all these
like executive orders coming out.
It's like we're shaking it up. I'm a little bit scared, but
hope it all works out at the end.
Just keep in mind for anyone panicking out there, like it's
kind of the same thing he did last time.
You know, the executive orders start flying, boom, boom, boom,
(34:38):
boom. What actually comes out in the
mix? We're not going to know, but
just just take it day by day. That's all I can tell you.
Yep. To wrap it back to Blake, Blake
Schroll had a tweet on February 10th that's currently on his
profile talking about the boomless cruise, supersonic
flights up to 50% faster with noaudible Sonic boom.
So they demoed their flight 3 times and they have figured it
(35:00):
out. So probably what happened is
they figured it out. And when they figured it out,
they said, hey, we, we figured this out, you should do it.
And then now it's let's leave again.
So I'm excited. Sign me up.
I'll tell you that pretty early.Maybe not the first one, but
sign me up. Pretty early for for getting on
a boob supersonic. Flight.
I pay a lot of money to get to Europe in a couple hours.
(35:22):
That would be amazing. It would be awesome.
Well, I think that that wraps itup.
If you are finishing your commute, I hope that you get a
great day of work in and that maybe if you're sitting in your
dead end job as a senior productmanager at a coupon website,
that maybe someday you too can get rules changed and with the
FAA. So go get out there and kill it.
(35:44):
I love it. Don't forget to subscribe to our
newsletter and we'll see you next time on the VI PS.
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