Well, we find ourselves at the close of another great year at Corporate Aviation Group (CAG). April 1, 2020, marks the end of year two of operations at CAG. We had yet another exciting, adventurous, and fun year with many new challenges and opportunities for growth. Follow along as we journey back and reflect on this past year.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

           

 

​

​

​

​

Figure 1. Airports visited this past year

​

​

        As seen above, one could say we had a jam-packed year of flying. This map shows us flying to 147 airports across 38 states and 5 foreign countries! To accomplish this, we spent 960 hours in the air, travelled 327,699 miles, and completed 909 individual flights. This accounts for an average of 80 flight hours, traveling 27,308 miles over 75.8 flights per month.  That is the equivalent of nine roundtrips to California monthly!  As each year of operation goes by, the question of “Busiest Month” gets asked often.  January was the winner this year.  We flew 117.5 hours, 39,775 miles, and 113 flights.  This breaks the previous year’s mark set in October with 107 hours flown.  We enjoy setting these records and always look forward to what the next year will entail. 

 

        There were some incredibly fun and unique locations that we visited this past year’s.  Some of those are: Driggs, ID; Nantucket/Martha’s Vineyard; Cabo San Lucas; Vancouver, Canada; Napa Valley, CA; Marsh Harbor, Bahamas, Aspen/Eagle, CO; Toronto, Canada; North Bend, OR; Las Vegas, NV; and Montego Bay, Jamaica.  As always, we take pride in our successful international trips. There are many distinctive challenges associated with the procedures and requirements to travel outside of the United States. However, experience is the key to a smooth and uneventful trip out of the country, and that experience is something that we continue to accumulate with each new trip.

           

        There were several airplane and partner changes over this past year. The first event occurred in early summer, with the sale of Beechjet 225SB.  We had operated this airplane for over eight years for Mr. Smithgall.  With the sale, he transitioned into a partner role on another Beechjet in the group.  This was a seamless and easy process thanks to our great owners and help from Thomas Trebus.  In October, we welcomed a new Beechjet (884HP) and owner to the group.  Mr. Holder and his team utilize the airplane for both business and personal travel.  With the start of 2020, we located and acquired a new Hawker 850XP to replace one Beechjet.  This one owner Hawker underwent a four-month total transformation with fresh paint and interior from Elliott Aviation.  880HP was officially welcomed in April, right as our second year of operation closed. We now operate an even number of aircraft: three Beechjets and three Hawkers.

 

        With the change in aircraft composition, there was a need for some pilot group changes and additions.  Noah Lindsey trained and transitioned into the Hawker and joined Thomas Trebus, Lee Cromwell, Alex Madura, and Matt Massey in trips on the Hawker. Alex is also furthering his leadership role by building on his Captain experience in the Beechjet by also taking on a Captain role in the Hawkers.  We added three new pilots to the group in early 2020.  At the end of January, Cody Bradshaw and Brett Usry were brought on board and began their training for the Beechjet. Both Cody and Brett previously worked as Flight Instructors for Falcon Aviation and Auburn University, respectively. Both have already proved to be great assets to add versatility to our pilot group. Finally, in March, Sam Fink was hired and thus finished our additions for this past year. Sam is a Commercially certificated multi-engine pilot in addition to being a graduate of Samford University.

 

        It has been a full and exciting year. As always, our success as a management group is largely due to the credit of our fantastic Owners. We are grateful to continue building on the relationships with each of them! We hope this past year has been as exciting and enjoyable for our Owners as it has been to the pilot group. We look forward to this next year and subsequent years as we continue journeying onward with our safety first philosophy.