Elliott Aviation CEO On Connectivity, Private Equity and Why He Was

1.  You recently added “CEO” to your title. How does that change what you’re doing?

The title of president was incumbent upon what we required last year, which was getting back to our core values. This year and 2027 should be growth years, and that is defined around strategy. So that’s part of what brought the role to realization. We are very focused on growing the business, expanding our capabilities and capacity for the customer base, and of course, focused on those key strategic initiatives that allow us to do that. We’ve already started some structure changes, which include enhanced focus on our avionics capabilities. We are known in the marketplace as an industry leader in avionics retrofits, so just making sure that we maintain that competency, the tooling and training efficiencies at all of our locations. That’s the structural focus—making sure that when you go to any of our four facilities, the feeling and the capability is the same from an avionics standpoint.

2.  What trends are you seeing in upgrades? Are you seeing lots of connectivity upgrades?

We continue to be Garmin’s No. 1 installations dealer. There is continued demand for the G5000 integrated flight deck and G1000 EFIS installations, and we do not see that letting up anytime soon. Wi-Fi is the dominant opportunity right now. Starlink and Gogo Wi-Fi are in high demand, and that will remain so for some time. We get numerous avionics requests, which allows us to build sustained capacity and forecasts—and to be predictive, which is very good for us and for the customers.

We recommend that most customers line up their avionics installation with the required aircraft inspection that’s coming due. Our sales team is very proficient with making sure owners and operators get the most value of the aircraft downtime, because that downtime costs operators money. We also can refurbish seats, the maximum interior upgrade that we can do during that timeframe. And of course, when we get to the larger scheduled inspections, we work with customers ahead of time to make sure that we line up the full paint opportunity, a complete interior, the larger avionics refurbishment—and it’s more cost-effective to the owners, because we’ve already got the interior out for the larger inspection, and you’re not paying two times to remove interior.

3.  What trends are you seeing?

There’s a lot of new owners that have gotten into aviation post-pandemic. Coupled with the hassles of flying commercial today, it’s creating more demand for people to get into private aviation and charter. So what we’re seeing are owners coming into the industry who are acquiring airplanes and wanting to put their stamp on them. They want to paint it their corporate colors, perform interior upgrades and make it their own asset.

However, it can be costly based on the condition of the airplane that you get and the unexpected costs outside of maintenance that people often don’t account for, such as the hangars. Insurance rates are climbing, just like they are on a personal basis. So as costs compound, it can be a little bit of a shock for people who are new to it and haven’t been counseled on what to expect. But that’s what we’re here for, to make sure that we’re helping mitigate that risk. We’re giving them plenty of time to plan for upgrades and spelling out what is required versus what is a want.

4.  Who is your customer base? Are they owner-operators, flight departments or charter operations?

It’s a very healthy mix. We consider ourselves a boutique-style maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) provider, and we cater to individual owner-operators. And we also have a solid portfolio of fractional and fleet operators that work with us routinely. They bring on new aircraft as fast as they can find them because the demands for charter and fleet right now are continuing to climb. Aircraft inventories are low so when they do find airplanes, they bring them to us immediately to get them up to their fleet standards. Wi-Fi is a very high requirement for charter fleet operators right now, so we install that and paint the aircraft to corporate colors and bring the interiors up to standards and specs.

5.  Since Summit Park purchased the majority interest in Elliott Aviation in 2020, what changes have happened? Do you foresee more private equity money coming into MRO and market consolidation?

I do see more acquisitions through M&A, private equity or charter and fleet operators that acquire MROs to control the service in-house. In the future, you’re probably going to see large-scale portfolios that own a lot of mini-conglomerates, and people will roll up underneath that, which is great for the marketplace. It’s actually really good for smaller MROs that have built a strong presence in the marketplace because it adds to their portfolio mix. So a company like Elliott that has a very strong core customer following, as we continue to add capabilities or expand, it only enhances that opportunity for our customer base. So yes, I don’t see that letting up anytime soon for the market. I think there will be more opportunities, and it allows companies to expand and grow, which is what the market needs, because private aviation is not showing any signs of letting up anytime soon.