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Navigating Through the Storm

AUTUMN 2020 (ISSUE 15) Business Aviation Magazine - Text Only

Jim Hansen, Founder and CEO of Western Jet Aviation, on the global pandemic and the uncertain recovery.

Q: Jim, before we look at the impact of COVID on WJA and the industry in general, can you just refresh us on the history of WJA?

JH: It all goes back to December 1972 when I’d graduated from the Northrop Institute of Technology, which is right near LAX in Los Angeles. I joined a small MRO outfit at Van Nuys Airport doing maintenance on light and mid-sized twin-engine aircraft.

That led to me gradually working my way up to Gulfstream G2s and I had a fair bit of experience working on G2s and G3s. Then the company I was working for went into their fifth or sixth buyout and I decided the time had come to fulfil a long-standing ambition of mine to go out on my own. I always worked to develop and maintain a great relationship with the aircraft owners whose planes I was working on. So, fortunately for me, when I said I was setting up on my own, a number of them came to me and said, where are you going? How can we help?

These offers of support came from across the board, from owners of small turboprops on to owners and operators of Gulfstream aircraft. That was how it all began. I scraped together or borrowed the tools I needed and from there it was all about working 18 to 20 hours a day, every day, building the client base and the company’s reputation.

I have to say that I was blessed with some of the greatest customers you could find. They knew we had a limited staff in those early days and I was always very clear about what we could and could not do. If something was going to take five days, I’d tell them that and I wouldn’t try to do it in four. But I wouldn’t take six days on it either.

They knew I was being honest with them and throughout the 21 years we have now been in business, we have been pretty much on time and on budget 99 percent of the time. That is what customers look for and respect in this industry.

Q: Pretty much the whole industry had a great year in 2019, following on from another really good year in 2018. Then, in March 2020, the pandemic struck. What impact did it have on WJA?

JH: Well, we managed to stay open the whole time, which was really important. We got everyone masked-up and instituted social distancing. All our internal and external meetings were with everyone six feet apart or more from everyone else. As timing would have it, we were appointed an Aviation Clean Air (ACA) dealer just prior to COVID so we implemented protocols to sanitize all aircraft with ACA’s portable ionizers upon arrival and again upon departure to protect our staff as well as customers. We’ve been busy quoting ACA’s interior purification system installations as well.

Fortunately, our revenue held up well. We had a lot of customers wanting to use the downtime to bring forward maintenance or upgrade events. We had to schedule them, of course, so not everyone brought their aircraft in at the same time. But we had a steady flow throughout the first three months of COVID and it went very well.

Our safety precautions worked and, so far, we have not had any COVID related illnesses, and we are still all doing our part to stay safe with masks and social distancing. We’re now seeing some worrying signs out there in the wider economy, of the pandemic moving to a second wave. But things have not yet fully opened up in our State, anyway.

The restaurants are still only open for outdoor eating and we have many things, including sporting events, that are still locked down. However, when this first started the 405 Freeway was empty of cars. Now the traffic is back. It’s a puzzle to me where the folks are all going, with so much still closed, but it is definitely getting busy again.

Q: How do you see things progressing?

JH: Well, we keep hearing that cases are going down and the hospitals are not as full. However, it seems to me that the real financial hit from the pandemic is continuing and is posing a real threat. Mom and pop businesses are closing down all around the place and big brands are shedding jobs. We see some well-known brands here in the US say they are shutting their doors for good. None of that is encouraging.

Q: What are you seeing on the charter front?

JH: We are already seeing a strong uptick from the charter companies that we deal with. They all say that charter prices are holding up well and there is growing demand. However, what they add is that they are doing many more point to point trips, rather than round trips. I don’t really understand why that is, since it stands to reason that folks have to get back again, but maybe everyone is trying to secure the best prices.

Clearly, it is going to take a long time, years perhaps, before commercial airlines are back at the same level of business that they enjoyed pre-COVID. Winning back public trust and getting people confident that they can be safe in a crowded commercial flight is going to be a tough ask for the airlines.

Q: If business aviation is going to take a further hit from the pandemic further down the line, when do you think it is likely to come?

JH: The downturn in business aviation generally lags behind a recession so it is hard to say. It may be that people will opt to hang onto aircraft for longer. But what we are actually seeing goes in the other direction. People who are putting their aircraft up for sale are doing so in order to upgrade to something newer and / or with a longer range. The point is, we are seeing a really good time right now. How long it will last is the 64,000 dollar question, but we can’t worry about that. We’re holding steady and looking good, thanks to our loyal customer base.

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