Jessie: good morning. Welcome back to the VIP seat. We have a story about a six-pack of beer and an airplane being seized. Sit back, buckle up, and let's take off. Preston, you are at Oshkosh today. So first of all, tell us like how's the show going? What's the vibe? What's the exciting news there?

Preston Holland: I am. it is really it's a great show. a lot of people here. It was a little smoky on Saturday and then Sunday morning. So that pushed a lot of arrivals into Sunday afternoon. It's also part of the reason why I sound a little scratchy is because somebody said that it's if you're outside, it's the equivalent of smoking a cigarette every two hours. So hence the scratchy voice. So I'm sorry for everybody listening. but yeah, it's it's been really good. The the fighter jets are just firing up. We tried to record this podcast to avoid the Jets, but you might hear it in the background. That's what that is. couple of big news that people are talking about. Emily Deaton is out at Jetaviva going to NBAA. So that is news that a lot of people are talking about here. we've got a couple of new unveilings. Technum has something under a big black blanket, so I don't know what that's going to be, but that reve reveal will happen at some point. So

Jessie: Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: we'll see that. But no, it's it's been really good. Epic is has brought a bunch of beautiful E one thousands and put them on display and their two hundred and fiftieth anniversary US liveries are gorgeous. the Cardinals Triple Seven was here yesterday, which was cool. So yeah, it's it's a great show.

Jessie: Nice. Yeah, and you he's he sent me a picture of a a Delta plane. I'm like, What are you doing at our GA event? Get out of here.

Preston Holland: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Boeing Plaza usually has like a big mixture of other of like military and some sort of commercial airline. I th yeah, there's a triple seven here yesterday. There's a A three fifty here today, which is ironic. Airbus in Boeing Plaza. I mean, you know, don't know if somebody planned that all that well, but yeah, no, it's been it's been really good.

Jessie: All right, well, let's kick it off with our first story, which is actually kind of GA, but I think could be relevant to everybody depending on how this case goes. So this is actually a 14-year-old case, but it's now making its way to the actual US Supreme Court, the federal Supreme Court, because Alaska, and this is a a Bush pilot versus the state of Alaska. The Bush pilot was apparently taking a passenger and her groceries, which included beer, like a six-pack of beer. to a dry county and apparently a state trooper for some reason decided to do a search and was tr and charged the pilot with a misdemeanor for the passenger that was carrying the beer, put him in jail for three days, and also seized his ninety five thousand dollar aircraft over the whole ordeal, which seems very excessive.

Preston Holland: Yeah, it's a bit much over a six pack, but I was reading a little bit about this story, and I guess it has something to do with like all of these remote villages or, you know, groups are totally dry because they had problems in the past. So they just said, you know what, we're just gonna go completely dry. I think it's unfair because the pilot was not responsible for the bringing of the beer, right? Like it would be different if he was smuggling a whole bunch of beer into this. Province, which okay, yeah, you should not do that. But he had a passenger who brought the beer. You should be punishing the passenger, not the guy who owns the airplane. I don't know. That's how I feel though.

Jessie: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and that's the key of this case. It's not that, okay, yes, there was a law violation, fine. but what the Supreme Court is going to be trying is this an example of excessive fees and fines for laws, and there is a clause that says you can't do that. So this argument will be other whether, a, he got in trouble, but was the punishment far more than the crime? I would say in this case, yes, but it'll be interesting to see what they come up with.

Preston Holland: Yeah, I mean, value the airplane at ninety-five thousand dollars. I mean, that's a ridiculous fine for a six pack of beer. I mean, couple hundred bucks, don't do it. You know, let it let him go on his That's so crazy. For si for six beers. Like, we're not talking he wasn't smuggling cocaine, right? Like, it'd be different if he was smuggling drugs, but like it's something that is

Jessie: Mm-hmm. And three days in jail on top of it. Poor guy. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Preston Holland: legal, maybe not necessarily where he was taking it, but it's not like he was it's not like he was doing some illicit activity, right? And he didn't even know it was in there in the first place. That's the crazy part.

Jessie: Mm-hmm. I know. Yeah, and it was a misdemeanor at the end of the day. I mean, so we're not talking about some like crazy rule breaking, but you know, not that. Anyway, but yeah, I think it's good for them to take up the case. I also wonder how it will impact even part 135 operators because you're looking at, you know, what's the culpability? Is it, you know, in your contract of carriage, for example, as an operator, that you're not responsible for the stuff that's in the passengers' Suitcase, just kinda something to pay attention to, even if you're not a GA pilot, 'cause ultimately it could affect us in some way.

Preston Holland: Yeah, no kidding. Well, do you know where you can definitely take your six-pack of beer when you want to get on the plane? Is on A B Jets Challenger 3500. Look at that. Beautiful segue. Great ad read. A B Jets, thanks so much to A B Jets for sponsoring this week's episode of the podcast. They're gorgeous, brand new Challenger 3500s, complete with Starlink, are an absolute game changer. Supplemental lift. Even the most discerning customers love the A B Jets Challenger 3500s.

Jessie: You're talking So Preston, actually this is a little bit of like operating knowledge. You can't take your own alcohol on an airplane. It has to be provided to you. But I promise you, if you ask for a six pack of of Bud light, I'm pretty sure A B Jets would be happy to follow all any of those requests.

Preston Holland: Mm. Yeah, very true. Well, okay, here's a question. Can you transport if you don't consume it?

Jessie: Yes, you can transport it. And also you can give it to the company that you're flying with and then they can serve it to you, but you can't officially bring your own alcohol on board. It's just one of those really weird little laws. But basically everyone just gives it to the charter company and the charter company serves it to the passenger. So it's a little silly.

Preston Holland: Hmm. It's kind of like, you know, the meme with Spider-Man who's like Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man? It's kind of what it feels like a little bit, right? Awesome. Well, this brings us to everybody's favorite segment of the show, which is Mile High Madness. We got tagged in a video for Mile High Madness, and it's making it onto the show. So, you know, super excited about that. Love getting tagged on stuff on social media to to show on the show. Show on the show? Yeah. Show on the show.

Jessie: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, show on show on the show. Show on the show. And we also have a report of reports coming up later. So we will Okay, so the video got tagged in this week. I think everybody in the industry saw this thing. but it is November three zero, Charlie Victor. I don't know what airplane it is, but let's listen to the discussion between the air trap controller and the pilot. Okay, it goes on for some time, but functionally it's this pilot got frustrated. We don't we don't know the whole story here, but the pilot got very frustrated and started really barking at air traffic control, ultimately threatening to declare an emergency because he wasn't getting the things that he wanted out of the situation. I'm gonna say the thing that I think a lot of people thought this week, and a lot of people think generally, is that there is a it's not every pilot. I'm let me preface this. It's not every pilot, but there is a subsection. of crew members in this industry who are let's say a little bossy and overly assertive and think they know everything, trying to tell the air drive controller what to do. But I'm just saying that's a small section, but it's out there. And I don't think this makes all of our pilots look good. So be aware that everything you say on the radio is now going to be put on the internet.

Preston Holland: Yep, yeah, no kidding. And you can't stomp your feet and get mad when you don't get something that you want. Like, declaring an emergency is not the answer here. You know, it's like there there are other ways that you can figure this out. Now this this is a good one. So thanks to Derek Johnson from Mach One Aviation for tagging us in this one.

Jessie: No. Yeah. And again, I hope I'm not gonna get too much flack about that, but we all know that there's those pilots that are just like too much incredibly online and have to comment on every single thing that is written about aviation safety. And I'm just saying like let's let's bring a little professionalism back to the cockpit because I think the pilots that are really professional hate seeing this kind of stuff. So just putting that out there.

Preston Holland: Yeah. Well, mine is part mile hide madness and bunch of madness happening, part PSA for people who have inventory out there. So I was sent this Instagram account. It's not gonna be a specific post, but it's gonna be an account. Now I'm gonna warn you for those who have sense who are very sensitive. There is, you know, this is a this is a Una Azul Casella, like a lifestyle Instagram influencer, right? Posting like Kardashian style pictures, okay. Stories about private jets, all of this kind of stuff. Well, someone on Facebook and on this Instagram account are holding out that they control inventory. So, like large cabin, hard to find inventory. If you know, you know. And they are posing as though they have control of this. You must they they say you must sign an LOI before they will disclose the information, the tail number, the serial number, all of that kind of stuff. So you must send an LOI before they do before you before they'll give you any information. But the reality is, is I know the people who are controlling this and they sent it to me and said, Hey, you think that you might be able to shout this out on the podcast to make people aware that there are these accounts that are posing as though they hold inventory. The crazy part is, is that there was a walk-around video that was sent to very few people that ended up making it onto the account that they're holding out. So be aware of stuff like this. I I think that the play is if you can get one. home run scam out of this. Like, you know, it's like, send a deposit here. It's a scam. The account shuts down. That's probably what's happening here. That's just a guess. But be on the lookout. There's a bunch of crap on the internet.

Jessie: Mm. Or just people trying to make a big slice of commission once they bring a deal that's like locked in with their customer. I and I know this happens all the time. That's like why a lot of people are reluctant to post like availability on the internet because it gets like circulated amongst all these brokers that don't actually have any control of the asset. So I mean, Preston, you're like way more in this world for people who are listening to the show that are buyers, like how do you know that you're talking to someone who actually holds the airplane and isn't just a broker for a broker for a broker?

Preston Holland: Yeah, the best way is buy-side representation. I mean, you have to have someone on your side of the table helping you negotiate. That's the best way to do it. Cause they know the good ones know who holds what inventory. And they will and if and in your contract, they are they are fiduciary to you, right? They cannot make any additional money out of the back if they bring the buyer, right? So really tight contracts, really good contracts. That's the way that you can avoid some of those things. don't just DM.

Jessie: Mm, mm.

Preston Holland: Scantily clothed influencers that say that they have large cabin airplanes and don't send them an LOI and don't send them any money. I it's just it's not a it's a recipe for disaster. Just don't do that.

Jessie: Ha ha Ha ha ha Be aware. They might even be AI. Is this girl even real?

Preston Holland: She might she might not be real. I mean, like, it yeah. Anyways, see see for yourself. We'll link it in the newsletter.

Jessie: Yeah. So we have a news section today because we found there were a couple of reports that came out this week and I like, these are both interesting I think we should share some nuggets from these. So we're gonna be reporting on the reports today.

Preston Holland: Yeah, we're gonna call it the report report.

Jessie: The report of reports. All right. the first one up is the MRO forecast. so this one was from Research and Markets. You know, for a lot of people, if you haven't seen these reports before, there's these big like analyst groups. They go out and they consolidate a whole bunch of data and they figure out like where these different markets are heading. It's for investors, it's for people in the industry. but this one I think is absolutely no surprise to us at all.

Preston Holland: Yeah, report report report. Welcome to report report section where we report on the reports.

Jessie: But the market value today of the MRO business, they're pegging it around $29.44 billion in 2025 and is expected to hit over 45 billion in 2032, which is a huge growth rate. but they're saying, you know, this all makes sense. Digital maintenance, predictive maintenance, health monitoring, all this stuff is gonna be driving up the value of the industry.

Preston Holland: Yeah. And I think that the compound annual growth rate was the number that kind of popped out to me. They pegged it like what, somewhere between five and six. I think it was like five point three, six point four. Like that, that's a that's a you know, beats inflation, beats you know, most growth, you know, the three percent kind of growth target. So I think that's what makes it interesting. If you remember back to our interview with Nick Fazzioli, is it's this idea about durability, picks and shovels, recurring revenue.

Jessie: Six point four percent. Yeah.

Preston Holland: You don't have to pick a winner. You just have to be there when somebody does win. And so I think that's an interesting thing. It also means that there's going to continue to be funds that come in. Now that is going to range from startup capital to start MROs. That's going to be transactions like what we saw with Westar. That's maybe a pure play MRO business going public. I don't know. I could see it. but I think that as that continues to grow. It will be interesting to watch and see how people are building in that space. The other thing that I thought was interesting from this report was the comparison between OEM versus third party, right? So you have your OEM MROs, your Gulfstream, your Bombardier, they're kind of doing a lot in our space. And then you have the third party, right? And so they kind of called out that hey, there's a bit of a divergence from kind of traditional MRO. OEM MRO to kind of third party MRO. So I think that's also an interesting trend that is worth watching.

Jessie: the other thing I thought was interesting too is that a lot of what's gonna drive growth, I think, is the scarcity of both labor and capacity. there's not a lot of hangerspace, there's not a lot of technicians being trained, and it's getting more and more expensive to train them. So just by virtue of, you know, what exists today and that pool continue to shrink, prices are gonna get up. So scarcity equals better pricing margins for these emergos.

Preston Holland: Yep, exactly. I think the one concern people have in our space is that the more consolidation is just gonna drive prices to the point where it makes more sense to go fractional. I think that's that is the one big risk with the MRO capac or with with MRO consolidation is that prices go up. We've watched it with FBOs. Look at FBO fees from the World Cup. It's a great example, right? As private equity comes in, they raise prices because they've got to hit targets.

Jessie: Mm, mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: Which is gonna make ownership less attractive. All of a sudden your overhaul went from you're budgeting six hundred grand, you know, for the for both sides to now it's one point two million per side, you know, or or whatever, right? You have these massive increases and all of a sudden they say, you know what? The whole air the whole aircraft ownership thing is not worth it anymore. I'm going fractional because they handle all of that stuff anyways. So I think that's the big risk, and that's the one thing I think that people in our industry are slightly concerned about. The counterfactual to that is that, you know, the market is efficient and so more players coming in is better and smaller shops being able to specialize and do, you know, one type of airplane very well for relatively cheap, is, you know, y I think that the market will self correct.

Jessie: Yeah, and look, airplanes move. So maybe you can't get, you know, the hangar space that you want in California. You might have to repo a little bit more. But I for anyone who's like investing in this industry, I think, you know, everyone would suggest the MRO space is the hottest at the moment, except for maybe FBOs, but those are kind of harder to get. I think MRO is is very, very interesting and got gonna do well. The airplanes continue to be sold, which is the next part of our report of reports is report number two. wealth briefing did a Really interesting report on, you know, what buyers are looking like today, what the global business jet market looks like. These two aren't like really comparable to the first number, but the jet market today or in 2024, they were saying it was around forty six and a half billion dollars. estimated at forty eight this year. Growth forecast is sixty seven billion by twenty twenty three. So still a five percent cager, which is pretty big, not as big as the MROs, but the business is doing well.

Preston Holland: Yeah, I think that the one thing that they may not be thinking about in that report is the fact that as all the demand is coming in, that's pushing the prices up. So while that five percent is probably driven by new delivery OEMs as a industry whole, I think that the pricing is gonna continue to go up. I'll tell you kind of like from a first hand example standpoint. A client of mine has been hunting a G450 for a year, can't find one. And he is going from charter to G450. Like that's his entry point, right? And so the article kind of talks about this tech wealth that's coming in that's creating all of this demand from a whole aircraft ownership. And people are skipping, right? So they're skipping the let me buy a sovereign and then I'm gonna go from a sovereign to a 450, and then I'm gonna go from a 450 to a 650. They're like, you know what, I'm cutting all that out. I'm jumping straight in. so I think that that's an interesting the five percent number may not tell the whole story of what the actual underlying value of all these assets ends up being when we see all this tech wealth kind of move through in this big moment of wealth creation that we're going through with AI and SpaceX and all these different companies that are going public. you know, you I think that that's gonna be something to watch. And they may not have estimated. I I don't I had I didn't dig deep enough on their methodology, but I I would imagine that that number might be a little light on kind of like the the overall market.

Jessie: Could be. Yeah. I mean, there's some other interesting nuggets in here. They were pegging, the average private jet owner globally has a net worth of one point seven billion dollars. and they spend around yeah, that's like very high, right? Yeah.

Preston Holland: That feels wrong. I that that feels that's wrong. It's I don't think that's right. And here's the reason why I don't think that's right. Is maybe if you subset out ultra long range, sure, like with you there. But they were like, they spend one percent of their wealth, which would put everybody in 14 million dollar airplanes, right? Which takes out all your G4, SP, and G5 owners. It takes out your XL, XLS, takes out your CJ owners. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessie: Yeah. Mm-hmm. There's probably data noise. I think there's gotta be noise on the hot like there's you know, the ultra premium in, this probably needs to be segregated out into smaller buckets so you can actually understand it. Cause yeah, I agree with you. Like you don't have to have a billion dollars to own an airplane.

Preston Holland: I mean, as like for a living, I look at personal financial statements of private jet buyers. It's literally what I do all day, every day. I can count on one hand how many of those totaled out to a billion dollars. And you know, and like 31 transactions last year, right? Like there's a lot of there's a lot of people that are worth half a billion or two hundred and fifty million that are buying perfectly good private jets.

Jessie: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Preston Holland: You know, the C J the C J four owner pool, C J three owner pool, like I would be surprised if there was multiple billionaires in that owner group, right? Like so I think the data probably it it it reads better that billionaires are buying private jets, right? Like, you know, if you if you drill down into that, but I think that that's probably that's probably a miss.

Jessie: Yeah. Sure. Yeah, well and it's all well, maybe not in a mist, but it's just it's g it there's some skewed data very likely in there, if I had to guess. the other piece of this too was it it's pegged the average age of an aircraft buyer, maybe you can confirm or deny, is like sixty three globally, but the Middle East it's fifty nine. So they're younger buyers in the Middle East compared to the rest of the world.

Preston Holland: Yeah, I think that that number is probably right. I mean, the problem is like average, right? Like averages can be skewed, right? Like median is probably a better data number here, right? Like what's the median age? I I think that it is getting younger. Ken Ricky talked about this at CJI a couple years ago. Their average customer is getting younger and is buying bigger, right? So, you know, it's coming, it's it's moving down the age spectrum and they're getting. in in a Praetor, they're skipping the phenom. They may even skip the Prater into a challenger, right? So I think that that is generally correct. I think that as this wealth tr this well you have the wealth transfer and then you also have the wealth creation with all this technology, data centers, AI, all that kind of stuff, those people tend to be younger, right? So I don't I don't know if I have a really strong opinion on that age number. It feels a little old to me, but

Jessie: Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: I don't know, I could be totally wrong there.

Jessie: Okay. It's the average. But I you know, I think the the good news here, I mean, this is all pretty good news for the industry, is that I mean, the industry is growing, bonus depreciation is working, it's driving sales, there's also a lot of scarcity, which is driving prices. So we'll have to see how that kind of bounces out in the long run. But when you're looking down the barrel of a, you know, twenty million dollar tax bill, it's kind of nice to kick that can down the road a little bit.

Preston Holland: Yeah, exactly. No, I I completely agree. Well, moving on to our next story is mosaic stuff, which is pretty cool, right? So Textron revealed the new Pipistral Mosaic Ready Trainer. Cirrus did the same thing last week with their mosaic ready trainer. and it's got Rotax engines, really lightweight, cheap, cheaper than one seventy two, and it's really targeted at that flight school market IFR trainer.

Jessie: Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: And it's interesting that there's a lot of innovation happening and development in that part in the mosaic part of GA, right? Like, I don't know, when you fly in a Cirrus, the engine tech like the tech in that thing, very cool. Touch screens, very cool. Parachute, very cool. Engine technology from the nineteen forties, right? Like at the end of the day, right? Like it's got a mag system, right? So it's cool to see some of that innovation.

Jessie: Yeah. Yeah, I think this is also very good for the industry because the cost of training continues to go up. We know that there are shortages. So anything we can do to bring costs down for flight training is huge. Yeah, and their goal was actually Av Brief kind of called this before it actually got announced, and everything that was in their report was pretty much the case. but the base price of this, I don't know why this article I had, it says it's two hundred and forty thousand euros, which is what, like three hundred thousand dollars or something.

Preston Holland: Something like that. I don't know.

Jessie: I don't know. don't quote me on that. But you know, the the average new one seventy two is like four hundred to five hundred and fifty thousand dollars. So, you know, half cutting it half potentially the cost of a training aircraft. So that could hopefully help training schools also may impact, I think, used one seventy two prices and other aircraft in the industry as these mosaic aircraft come on the market with less certification needs and cost needs. this could put some pressure on older machines. But you know, overall, look, we gotta bring the price down for training, so I think it all makes sense.

Preston Holland: Yeah, and for, you know, business aviation is not just jets, right? Like we're here at Oshkosh you see a wide variety of airplanes, right? Like we saw a G four SP land and we saw a couple of backpacks, you know, backpack blowers land and everything in between, right? So but GA oftentimes looks a lot like a bonanza, right? Or a Cirrus, or it looks like a one eighty two, where it's aviation being used for business, right? And so

Jessie: Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: it's good it's good for this for the training perspective. I think some of those maybe older airframes that are on the verge of mosaic being able to be replaceable might experience some pressure. But it's exciting. I I would probably buy one. I think the Rotax engine, I don't know if I love it personally, but that's just me. but yeah, I think it's I I think that it's really exciting.

Jessie: Yeah, and look, it's you know, it's called the Voyager. it's this is literally being announced, you know, the new rule takes place in three days. So, like obviously all these mosaic aircraft are getting ready to come out. It is a two seater too, which you know, thinking about like, okay, would business owners potentially use this as a commuter? Because I think that's another like business use case that a lot of people don't pay attention to, is some people do legitimately commute in small airplanes. but we'll have to see. If it's only two seats, I can't imagine it has a lot of payload, but maybe that doesn't matter.

Preston Holland: Yeah, I think the other thing too, I just want to give a shout out to the Textron marketing people. Thank you for not choosing a terrible name because the last one that Pipestrol came out with was the sinus. Okay. I was like, the sinus, like a sinus infection? Like what in the world? So thankful the word Voyager works, right? It works here in America. It's cool, it's neat, snifty, right? It wasn't like I was like, the sinus, like that's kind of weird. So anyways, good for Textron.

Jessie: Yeah. Voice was cool. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, no. Yeah, good for them.

Preston Holland: Get gotta get an ROI of buying Pipstrel, I guess, right? So

Jessie: All right. Well, speaking of things that aren't small airplanes that are big airplanes, was Giano Infantino. There was a report this week that came out. and also there were like tons of memes during the World Cup going on because he was literally in every single place at every single time, and it was like truly unbelievable. He's like, he's in New Jersey, he's in Spain, he's in Texas, like all over the place. The Qataris had given him a I don't know if they gave it to him or it was part of the sponsorship, but they're a sponsor. And they gave him a Golf C 650 ER to cross country. And he's been doing this for many years, apparently. It's not just the US. but he ended up flying fifty-seven thousand miles or more based on the reports that we're seeing during the World Cup.

Preston Holland: Can I say one thing? Hell yeah. Like I love that. That's awesome. Bit that's that is the beauty of business aviation because it was basically an advertisement for what we do. It's like he was everywhere. He was at every single match sitting in the same seat from kickoff to final whistle, every single match, or not every single match, but it felt like it. Right. And so he was, yeah. And doing overnights from Seattle to Miami.

Jessie: Right. You're right. Pretty dang close.

Preston Holland: Apparently flew like a hundred and twelve hours or something like that in a very short stint. So you basically like I don't know, it's like flying a pretty significant fractional chunk in six weeks. So heck yeah. but yeah, no, I think this is good. Like this is for our industry, it's good. Now there's a lot of people who are a angry about the carbon footprint because apparently he had the carbon footprint of like forty six people for their lifetime in sixty days. Yeah. Seventy eight people. So buy your offsets.

Jessie: Yeah. Seventy eight people. He could buy offsets. Yeah. Buy your offsets, man.

Preston Holland: Buy your offsets. Yeah. We we had we had K we had Kennedy we had Kennedy Ricky on the show a couple weeks ago. Call Kennedy. Hey man, I need to get out s get out from under some hot water. Can I buy some offsets?

Jessie: Yeah. No, I think, you know, look, for the people who know, like this is exactly why we need business aviation and why executives like this use it. Do you really think he could make it to a fraction of those games if he had to fly commercially? I mean, there's absolutely no way. So yeah, I think it's amazing. I look the climate thing, FIFA did pledge to cut their emissions by fifty percent. So he probably should do something to offset this if he wants to maintain the PR game. But from a business utilization perspective, obviously it makes sense. it's really interesting though that like the Qataris gave this to him and they're a sponsor. Like I wonder how all that works at the end of the day.

Preston Holland: Mm mm. Hey, they didn't they didn't make they didn't make it to the finals, so you know, so they didn't buy their way into the finals. So I mean I guess that's something. no, it's it's it's interesting. But they've got f freaking great airplanes. They ha they hosted the World Cup last time, right? So like he's in tight. and the one of my favorite things was the red card, right? he was sitting next to what was it? Was it Scott Besson or s it was one of the

Jessie: Mm, true, true. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: one of the cabinet members and all of a sudden Howard Lutnick, that's who it was, and magically the red card got re reversed. And then Trump's like, Yeah, we totally told him to do that. And it's like, yeah, it was it was the World Cup was entertaining just from a cultural phenomenon. It was great from a private aviation standpoint. Although I will say pandemonium in the Northeast was texting with some charter broker friends. Teterborough sh quit taking reservations like forty eight hours ahead of time. Farmingdale quit the night before.

Jessie: Hm. Yes. Yeah.

Preston Holland: There was like

Jessie: Yeah.

Preston Holland: tons of mass cancellations on commercial flights. So it was like it was a pretty bonkers there for a minute on Saturday night.

Jessie: Yeah, I did a post on our Instagram page, which you should follow because I've been trying to be more cutesy and funny lately. but I did this picture of it's Lionel Messi at the end, you know, this was this was like his swan song. He w we would have hoped that he would have won after his, you know, beautiful 20 year career, but he didn't. Spain was the winner, but he was crying at the end. And so I overlaid that with, I forgot to file a PPR. Learning those are presidential TFR out of Teeter Bro when you're trying to take off for the game. running out of duty time when they go into overtime. There's just all these like sad moments that have occurred over the weekend during the World Cup. But I think everyone saw that coming. It's always gonna be a mess in a situation like this.

Preston Holland: Yeah, no kidding. Well, speaking of who can get you out of a mess, our other sponsor this week, RealJet, is real people focused on real relationships. And we're super thankful for them sponsoring this show so that we can have the real conversations about business aviation.

Jessie: Yeah, and I have no doubt that Realjet arranged a ton of experiences over the weekend and over the last few weeks as well, 'cause sports marketing and sports has been really a core part of their business and what they've done in the past. So thank you, Real Jet, to sponsoring the show and making this possible. All right, so the last story of the day, we kind of already touched on this a bit in the earlier topic 'cause it made sense. but we wanted to talk about AI wealth and all the things that it's creating for the industry. And I thought it was really cool that my awesome co host Preston was quoted in this article this week.

Preston Holland: Yeah, I got a phone call from a guy at the information and he was like, Hey, can I pick your brain on private aviation? I said, Sure. You know, always always happy to help the press try and shape the narrative and make sure that they're not saying something egregious. So I usually say yes to those questions, and I did. and he was verifying a bunch of stuff. And there's a couple of other names that got shout shouted out. Former guest Greg Sidor from Guardian Jet got shouted out, Israel Slaud from Kraft Charter got shouted out. a couple of others, Bond got shout out. So a lot of the familiar faces that you know if you listen to the show. but one of the stats that he talked about, the one thing he quoted me on was something that he totally painted me into a corner. He was like, Well, one person said that that tech wealth is about 20%. Do you agree with that? And I was like, yeah. I mean, I'd say that's probably a fair assumption. He said, Cool. what do you think that it what it will be? And I said, I I don't know. Maybe double. I was like, But I don't know. I have no facts about this. This is a total gut feel. That's the one quote he pulled was me saying, I don't know if this is true. It goes from twenty per might go from twenty percent to forty percent based off of just kind of like quick thinking and quick math. And he quoted me like that, that's what I said. So news tip we are not journalists. I know that you may think that we are, we are commentators, so we don't do original reporting.

Jessie: Yeah. Yeah.

Preston Holland: When you're talking to a journalist, make sure that you don't think out loud, because that's the one thing that they're gonna quote you on in the article. And I was like, I gave you so much great information in our hour and a half long phone call, and that was the one that you picked. All right, so thank you. But getting shouted out is cool.

Jessie: Ha ha I mean, i it could be a decent guess. Who knows? There's no one who can grass the crystal ball on this, but at the end of the day, I mean, during the dot-con boom, there was a discussion that, you know, the industry went up 25% during that time. A lot of money has been made on the internet, and I certainly think AI is gonna be a huge driver of it as well. Already has been. I mean, between like the IPOs recently, there's gonna be a lot of people that have a lot of depreciation need this year and they're gonna need their airplanes. but yeah, there's a lot of good nuggets in here. Definitely we'll post a link to this. I think you do have to have a subscription, unfortunately. So sorry folks, you gotta pay to play. But one thing I thought was cool in here was Greg Sider, who was a guest before. He talked about used prices are going up fifteen to twenty percent. I think it's even more on some models. I guess that's like an industry average.

Preston Holland: Yeah, yeah, no, they're definitely going up. And, you know, as inventory constrains, that's the big problem. It's what everybody's having issues with. It's not a demand problem, it's a supply problem. So that's part of the challenge is you have people not trading out and up. And so therefore they hold on to their inventory and so it constrains. And little micro markets will have these little moments, right? So like the six fifty market still having a moment, the four fifty market's having a moment, the sovereign market was having a moment. And now it's, you know, kind of normalized the leg or the Prater 600 market. Michael Barber just tweeted recently that it went from zero supply to like a pretty healthy amount of supply on the market. So it's interesting to kind of see that. I think too, and the thing that I really tried to help this journalist who has never flown private before in his life could not tell you the difference between I had to I was we were talking through and I was like, all right, here's what a turboprop is, here's what a turbo fan is.

Jessie: Yeah.

Preston Holland: multi-engine, single engine, you know, I kind of gave him like the quick one one business aviation. he had the he kept asking me, he's like, okay, well, well how about like private jets? And I was like, well, okay, there's a lot more than just like Kim Kardashian. And then he kept sliding back to that. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. Get back on the rails. I know you're one of if it bleeds, it leads. but I think that the one thing that I took away from the article and kind of from our conversation and what other people are commenting is that

Jessie: Ha ha

Preston Holland: It's a rising tide. So it's like not just the buyers of these airplanes, but you think about the SpaceX, you know, IPO. Now they're liquid. They'll start chartering or they may go fractional or, you know, what have you. I do have one friend who does kind of buy the seat stuff, and legally, part three eighty. and they're they had a client that was early at one of these big companies that said, you know what? It's time for us to upgrade. We're gonna charter a whole airplane, right? They had flown a couple of times part 380, and then they're like, all right, we're stepping up, right? So I think that there's gonna be an upgraded experience for those who have flown private. And then a lot of folks that, you know, if you're an early enough employee at SpaceX, like you just became a multimillionaire, like what's the first thing on the list? It's flying private, right? So I think that's the big tailwind that that happens with all of this liquidity, you know, in the market and all these wealth events.

Jessie: And and not only, you know, those who are actually in the AI space, but the goal or the hope is that all this AI is gonna facilitate, you know, better margins and better efficiency at companies. So other companies can sell for higher values. the valuation, you know, of businesses is kind of what drives our whole industry. The more aircraft that or sorry, the more businesses that get sold, the more airplanes that typically need to be bought. so let's keep it going, keep IPO and keep selling out there.

Preston Holland: Yep, exactly. And keep flying private, and it is awesome. Well, this has been another awesome episode of the VIPC live, me live from Oshkosh, Jessie live from her office. we really love when people share the show with people that they know. It's the best way for us to grow. I can't tell you how many people have come up to me and talked to me at Oshkosh and are like, I share it with everybody that I know. That needs to be you. So go in, hit the little share button, send a text. It takes you like 30 seconds. Send it to everybody that you know. That way they can be smarter. It's designed 30 minutes, digestible, easy to listen to for your drive into work so that you can be smarter about business aviation. Thanks to A B Jets and Realjet for sponsoring this week's episode of the podcast. And we will see you all next week.