Dallas-based Atlantic Aviation Corp., which provides fuel and flight services to corporate and private planes, is buying Newport Jet Center at John Wayne Airport.
Atlantic is buying the center for undisclosed terms from Minneapolis-based General Aviation Holdings LLC. The deal also includes General Aviation’s Million Air Palm Springs center at Palm Springs International Airport.
“This is our first venture into the West Coast,” said Sue Sommers, vice president of sales and marketing for Atlantic Aviation.
Both deals are awaiting approval from officials at John Wayne and Palm Springs airports, who oversee leases at the facilities.
Atlantic, known in industry parlance as a fixed-base operator, provides various services for private plane crews and passengers, including fueling, maintenance, booking of rental cars and hotel rooms, catering, leasing of hanger space, insurance and concierge services.
Newport Jet Center’s main rival at John Wayne is Signature Flight Support Corp., a unit of Britain’s BBA Group PLC. Newport Jet employs about 75 people at the airport.
General aviation activity, including corporate jets, makes up about 75% of flights at John Wayne.
The pacts to buy Newport Jet Center and Million Air Palm Springs would bring Atlantic Aviation’s stable of centers to a dozen, Sommers said.
Atlantic Aviation also has operations in Chicago, Houston, New Orleans and Philadelphia.
“Our long-term strategy is get into certain markets that are high-destination, high- growth areas,” Sommers said.
Justin McCusker, manager of government relations with John Wayne, said he wasn’t sure when the Orange County Airport Commission would consider the Newport Jet Center deal.
Craig Foster, a manager of the Santa Ana-based Newport Jet Center, confirmed sale of the company but declined to elaborate.
The business got its start as Sunrise Jet Center in 1992. Newport Jet has a pilots’ lounge, a conference room, business and flight planning center as well as maintenance services.
Sommers said she expects the deals to be done by the end of the year.
“We had hoped for a Nov. 15 close, but that is probably not going to happen,” she said.
Fixed-base operators are undergoing consolidation. In May, Atlantic Aviation’s parent company, Dallas-based Executive Air Support Inc., was bought by Macquarie Bank Ltd. of Australia in a deal valued at $240 million.
Macquarie combined Atlantic Aviation’s operations with its Avcenter chain in the Midwest and South.
The deal marked the third time Atlantic Aviation changed hands within the past decade. After nearly 70 years of ownership by the Du Pont family of Delaware, the merchant banking unit of Legg Mason Inc. bought Atlantic Aviation in 1997.
Three years later, Legg Mason sold the original flagship Atlantic Aviation maintenance facility at Wilmington, Del., to Dassault Falcon Jet Corp. Later that same year, the remaining Atlantic Aviation operations were sold to Executive Air Support, which was started in 1999 by CD Ventures, a Berwyn, Pa.-based private equity investment firm, and Lou Pepper, former sole owner of Million Air Interlink, operator of the Million Air chain. n
