Matt Walter, thank you
for being on the JET.
And Matt is one of the
managing partners of Guardian JET,
one of, if not the largest broker,
of JET aircraft in the
United States, right?
Correct, yeah. Awesome, awesome.
Thank you very much for having me.
Absolutely.
Yeah, can you tell me a
little bit about Guardian JET
and who Guardian JET
is for the uninitiated?
So Guardian JET, full
service consultant and broker.
We do it a little
differently than others in our space
and our competitors.
And we will do a lot of,
we take a consultative sales approach.
We have plenty of people
that cost and just say,
hey, I wanna upgrade my
JET or I wanna buy a JET.
But for the people
that are getting into it
for the first time,
or for fortune companies that
own one or three or five jets,
they come to us for consulting, right?
Fleet planning, when should I own?
At what point should I,
how many hours do I fly?
How many, if I'm flying a
hundred or 150 hours a year,
when does it make sense to make the jump
from charter or
fractional into whole ownership?
On the other side of
it, you have corporations
that have one or three or five jets
and they have a director
of aviation in charge of,
you had run a flight departments before
and you know that
there's a lot to do in that.
You have to operate, you have to worry
about getting your
executives safely across the world.
And that's a full-time job, right?
You have to worry about
operations and managing people
and managing flights.
So we come in there
with the fleet planning
and we help, it's more of
a capital plan and saying,
okay, when is the right
time to trade out your jets?
What does it cost?
You know what it costs to
operate what you're operating?
But what does it cost
to operate the planes
that you don't operate?
What should you operate?
When should you trade?
And so we do those
presentations and those fleet plans.
And so we're helping
directors of aviation
and just manage their
assets like an aviation,
like a stock in a portfolio.
So then do you also come back and say,
you know, the financial structure of it,
is it better to lease?
Is it better to buy?
Should you pay X amount of dollars?
I mean, do you get
involved in any of that?
Yeah, we do, we
measure all of that stuff.
And for us, we're not
always telling someone
what you should do, but
we're presenting options
and showing the costs
and the pros and the cons
of each option.
So we get into cash versus lease versus
finance all the time.
We also get into
charter versus fractional
versus whole ownership all the time.
If you're gonna own a jet, should you
chart it on the side?
What does that look like?
When it comes to the
finance and the cash and leasing,
there's a lot of times with leasing,
there's not an aviation reason to lease.
There might be, you know,
there might be a business reason
to lease a jet.
But when you're looking at
10 year total life cycle costs
or net present value,
leasing typically loses
to finance and cash.
Sounds like cost is a big
factor in all this, right?
Like if you're talking on a corporate
level, business level,
just the ownership cost of a jet,
the operating cost of
a jet seems to be like
one of the major factors.
Is that, when we're talking about this,
that keeps being kind of like,
even when I'm talking to Jason about it,
it's just like, cost, cost, cost.
Are there other factors like,
does somebody just say,
this new jet came out,
it's really cool, can we get one?
We get calls like that, we do, we do.
And then again-- I've
seen like the Bombardier,
what is it, the 8000, it just came out.
Like that thing's bad ass.
It is. Like--
Fast.
Four cabin zones, one
stop anywhere in the world.
Right. Shower.
Very well, you guys
have an option for that.
Yeah, so do you get that too?
Or is it mostly just like,
hey, what are the
pros and cons cost wise?
We get all of it, right?
So we definitely get those guys.
And honestly, that's where we shine
because we take that
consultative approach.
So we are talking to those guys
and we're coaching them through it.
And we once had a guy say,
"I gotta do a case study on you guys.
You guys have helped me, you haven't
asked me for a penny."
We're not gonna put a
proposal in front of somebody
until they're ready.
Because they have so many questions
and they don't know what they don't know.
And our industry is just so vast
and it can be opaque at times.
And so we do get those calls.
And we love those calls.
Because then we can educate them.
And here I am, I've been
doing this for 13 years
and I've gotten pretty good at it.
And my company is,
we're just the greatest.
We just have so much
data and so many analytics.
And so we just wanted to
share that with everybody.
And I think guys really appreciate
our sort of open and
transparent approach.
We're very liberal with our data.
We wanna just educate the
smartest people in the world.
And I get to educate them on something
that I'm an expert in.
So it really, yes, we get those calls
and we're able to drop some knowledge
on someone who's obviously brilliant
in another aspect of his life.
But he doesn't know aviation.
And so he comes in and says,
"I wanna buy a Global 8,000."
"Well, but you're only
going New York to Florida.
Maybe you don't need the Global 8,000."
And we go buy a Global 8,000.
Yes, I do.
Right.
So with that said, it seems like
there's a broad range of brokers, right?
So how do you narrow it
down to who's the right broker?
And what broker's gonna
give me the most value?
Right broker's always guardian jet.
That's what I say sometimes.
That's what I say.
There's a lot of really
good brokers out there.
There's a lot of people
that do it the right way.
What's worked for us, again,
is we take a little different approach
with all the consulting,
which leads to the brokerage
and the buying and selling.
We've sort of centralized our approach
where we have a lot of
sales guys in the field.
We have pretty much
all of the United States
covered, we have, I think,
18 regional sales directors now,
and that's all in the US.
We have Western Europe, South Africa,
two in Brazil, two in Mexico.
Brazil and Mexico have been huge for us.
So you want a broker that has subject
matter expert, right?
They understand the cost.
They need to understand your mission.
The main thing for me,
though, it comes down to trust.
You have to trust your broker.
You're entrusting him with a lot of
expensive decisions,
which airplanes to get,
because the devil's in the
details on these airplanes.
So in a buy situation,
and you're buying a
pre-owned jet, for instance,
and you need to
understand that maintenance.
And you really have to understand
on a 10, 15, 20-year-old machine,
maybe that's two or
four or 8,000 hours on it,
you got to know what you're doing.
So how do you find the right broker?
Well, again, it's just who's available.
We pride ourselves on being super
responsive all the time.
We pride ourselves on
going above and beyond.
If somebody asks for one
thing, we send them five things.
I think they need to know,
again, you got to trust them.
They need to know their product,
and they need to know the industry.
They need to be connected.
So I think there's a number
of great brokers out there.
I made a joke last night to you guys
that it's an unregulated industry.
Well, that was gonna
be an expression, right?
If I wanted to buy a jet or
if I wanted to sell a jet,
I would assume that there's all kinds of,
because these are like
complex flying machines
going over people's heads.
There's probably gonna
be a lot of regulations
around who can be
involved in that transaction.
Who can be involved?
There's got to be tons
of regulations, right?
And then I learned from
you, that's not the case?
So lots of regulations
in the flying of them
and the operating of the actual jet,
but in the trading of these assets,
there's no regulations.
That's so insane.
The barber down the
street. That just blows my mind.
You could print the
business card tomorrow
and call yourself a jet broker.
So I get in trouble if I try to cut hair,
but I can sell a jet.
But you can sell a jet
to anybody. Yes.
Dude. Your barber down the street
has to pass more tests to cut your hair
than you do to become a jet broker,
managing
multi-million dollar transactions.
So it's important that you know who
you're doing business with
and there's a lot of
great guys out there.
We will, at Guardian Jet,
be the center of it all.
We'll quarterback it all,
but you're gonna need
an aviation attorney
who will work with your in-house attorney
and Guardian Jet's in-house counsel,
but you're gonna want a
subject matter expert.
We have a lot of people that say,
well, I got my
in-house counsel, he can help.
Aviation is so unique
that you really need a
subject matter expert.
You may need a financier,
maybe you're paying cash,
maybe not, but we talked
about lease or getting a loan,
so you're gonna wanna
talk to a couple of banks.
There's banks, there's niche banks,
there's the big
banks, there's small banks,
you might have a
relationship with the bank
that's getting an aviation.
Talked about management companies.
You need someone to operate it
and there's a lot of
great management companies
out there, big or small.
Someone's gonna manage
your actual flight operation,
schedule flights, schedule maintenance,
handle car service, handle catering,
just make one phone call
and they handle your entire
aviation operation, right?
And so at Guardian Jet, we try to, again,
we don't say, hey, go talk to this guy,
we wanna be involved.
So I'm feeling overwhelmed now.
You're mentioning all
these people, right?
I'm thinking about owning a jet,
I'm thinking about
looking into that global 8,000
that I have my eye on, right?
And I'm like, I don't
know an aviation attorney.
I don't know a financier
that is going to help me
with aviation, so.
So the broker is gonna
be the one facilitating
all of that, right?
How do I know that?
A guy's not trying to screw me,
it's an unregulated industry, right?
So how do you vet these people?
How do you know that that
broker is a good broker?
And that's, and honestly, for us,
I think a little easier
because we've been around now
since 2002.
We're up now over, we
just keep growing each year,
but we're now gonna probably do 150
transactions this year.
So for us, we've just
built this amazing team
and we always invite people, come to
Guilford, Connecticut,
come see the team, come
see the trading floor.
Look at all of our
data, we have more data
than anyone else in the industry.
So for us, I think
it's a little bit easier
because we've been around for a long time
and we've grown and we've grown
and we have a lot of good relationships.
We do 40% of the Fortune 100 companies.
Now they're half of our business
is high net worth
individuals and private companies.
And we've just always
tried to do the right thing.
And so when someone
brings me in as a referral,
because a lot of big lead
generation source for us
is getting referred into places, right?
You're not cold
calling anymore, it's harder.
I sort of did it the old fashioned way
when I first started in 13 years ago.
I was going around and
knocking on hanger doors
and putting pamphlets
under people's doors
if they weren't there.
And I'd take any meeting
to get inside the place
and then I'd try to go from there.
It's harder to do that now.
So for us, if we get
referred into someone,
we just want, we want to
do a good job for everyone.
Especially get referred into someone
because now, hey, your client tells you,
you brought me into a deal to service him
and he tells you how great I did.
I want you to tell your friends,
I want you to bring me into more deals.
And so we always just
try to do the right thing.
And for me, I learned a long time ago
to be customer focused,
not transaction focused.
When you're customer focused
and you have to have a long term vision
and it's not about what's
good this month or this week
or this year because
these guys have friends,
they're going to come back.
They might start with a
citation or a challenger
or a mid-size and then
three or five or seven years.
And it's always quicker
than they think coming back.
That's got to be hard though,
as a sales organization, right?
Because it's like, I've been in sales.
I know what it's like to have sales goals
and sales numbers you got to hit, right?
And for you to have
that longer term vision,
it's kind of unusual
in a sales environment
because so many people in sales
environments are just like,
no, we have to do whatever it takes
to hit these numbers or else.
Yeah, but that's a
problem in this market, right?
In this world, because say we go out
and vet a Gulfstream for somebody
and we take it through
the maintenance process
and we find out in the maintenance
process, there's an issue.
There's a problem with this airplane.
Okay.
So now it's a choice, right?
We need to either fix it and move forward
or do we not say anything, right?
So, and I think you'll find on the lower
end of the spectrum,
you'll find that brokers
aren't gonna say anything.
No, just gonna push it
through because it's a paycheck.
So they wanna get it out
the door as quick as they can.
Whereas you look at, you know, Guardian
and some of the other big, you know,
established brokerages
and us included, right?
We wanna make sure that, you know,
we push out a quality product
because we don't want
that person to get it.
Give me some green flags and red flags.
What do I need to be looking for?
If I'm looking at, well, you know,
I'm thinking about owning a jet
and like maybe somebody
introduces me to somebody
that's like, yeah, this guy
will sell you a jet, right?
What do I, how do I vet that person?
How do I interview that person?
Well, it's funny because you say,
this guy will sell you a jet, right?
And a lot of people,
I think the changing,
the thinking is changing.
A lot of people think, I need a jet.
I'm gonna call you sell me something.
And we took this approach.
50% of our business is acquisitions.
Half of that is new and used, right?
So we buy half of our
acquisition is new and half is used.
But we're not trying to sell you
something from our inventory.
We're gonna go out,
we want you to hire us
as an acquisition agent to
go out and blanket the market.
Now I have your best
interest at heart, right?
Now I'm going to look
at the entire market
and I'm gonna take 30
airplanes for sale in this model,
20 here, 15 here, 35 here,
and I'm gonna distill it down
based on a lot of
discovery early on in the process
because I wanna understand your mission.
I want you to
understand your own mission.
I want you to understand the costs
because there's a lot of costs that
people don't know about
and not everyone's
always so upfront about that.
But as an acquisition agent,
now we have your best interest at heart.
Let us bring you a list
of, a short list of finalists
that we can go deep on together.
But now I represent you and
I can get you the best price
in the market versus
I'm selling you something.
I'll go get paid by the seller.
Well now I don't have your
best interest at heart, right?
So now I want to just go find an airplane
where I can get paid versus
finding you the best airplane
and then working on your
behalf to cut the price down
and save here and save there.
So for me, it's not, hey, sell me a jet.
I think the thinking's changing, right?
Is hey, I wanna hire you
to buy me a jet, right?
And so now that's the
better way to think about it.
But again, you gotta
understand the mission,
understand the costs.
Yeah, so I'm also coming
back, like how do I know?
Even if I'm in a conversation with,
I mean, Guardian Jet's got
a great reputation, right?
So it's like, that's an easy one.
But if I'm talking to
maybe a smaller broker
or somebody that
doesn't have that reputation,
how do I know?
I think kind of like what you said,
just to paraphrase it and bring it back.
The first question is gonna
be, what are you looking to do?
It's not gonna be, hey,
let's go look at this.
So it's just how they approach it?
It's how they approach it?
Not transactionally, but--
Exactly.
Not trying to take you
right to the biggest thing
that's gonna get you right out of the gate.
And here's what it's gonna cost you
and making sure that you're fully aware
of all the bills that are
gonna come in on this airplane.
Because again, people like us,
we wanna see recurring
customers keep coming back.
So if we take them down a road
where we show them data that's not right
and it's skewed,
then we're not gonna see
that customer again, right?
Yeah.
Because they're gonna end
up getting into something
they can't afford,
and it's gonna be that broker's fault.
So do people
typically know what they want
when they start the conversation?
Think they do.
Not always.
Sometimes you say, I want this airplane.
And then sometimes you
get somebody that says,
I have this amount of
money, what can that buy me?
And you still have to, I used to say,
I can tell you what you need
with three questions, right?
How far are you going?
How much money do you have to spend?
And then most importantly,
how much money do you have annually
to pay for the operating costs?
And how many people you travel with.
Okay.
And that alone can, you know,
it's funny because it's not like cars
where there's 300
available at any given time, right?
It's a finite amount of models
and then within those models,
there's a finite amount
of good airplanes for sale.
There's only so many to choose from,
but people come into this
all the time not knowing.
Or maybe they heard something,
hey, I really heard about this G280,
I wanna, or the
Challenger 300, tell me about that.
And then we just talked to them
about the pros and cons of each, right?
Do you find yourself
having to talk people down
out of like, like things
that might not be appropriate?
Like they want the Escalade,
but they really need a caravan, you know?
Just literally two years ago,
two years ago we talked, we were,
a guy came to us and he
wanted to buy a $50 million global.
And we just listened to his mission.
We said, you know, your first time owner,
we like to start, dip
your toe in the water.
Let's go with the Challenger,
let's go to the super
mid-size and see how that works.
And he got the super
mid-size and loves it.
Doesn't go out of the
country, didn't need a global.
So we have talked people down.
Again, against our own self-interest.
You know, best way I
talk about our companies
when I tell stories
about deals that I've done
for people that are not.
Sure, well, no, no.
I mean, because ultimately
he is gonna probably come back
and get that global, right?
I mean, he's gonna grow into it.
(laughing)
And here's something too
that just to quick talk about,
but you know, you said,
well, there's a list of maybe 15
of these type of airplanes on the market.
We wanna get a G280, there's 15 of them.
And we're just using that number.
But out of that 15, there could be six
that are just great
airplanes to go after.
So then the question comes back, why?
Isn't it all maintained the same?
It's regulated, it's FAA
regulated, blah, blah, blah.
Sure.
Well, yes, but just like
your car or anything else,
you know, the quality of the
work that you've done to it
to maintain it through the years
can vary from owner to owner, right?
So we make sure we articulate that
because we get that question.
Well, I really like that one.
That one looks great,
interior fits, well, it's great.
Well, yeah, but there's some issues here.
This is, you know, let me explain it.
There's the best deal and
there's the best airplane.
Yeah.
So then you have to pay up
to get the best airplane,
especially right now, which is Q4.
Q4 is typically 35 to
40% of our business.
So sometimes success is
buying the airplane, right?
Getting a good airplane.
And so we have those
conversations all the time,
but this airplane is $2 million cheaper.
Why don't we get that one?
Well, but look at the total time.
Look at the equipment, look
at the paint and interior.
Look at the cost.
There's a reason.
Look at the maintenance status.
Look at the pedigree.
You can't put a price on pedigree.
Pedigree is my favorite,
favorite thing to buy on air.
I want that big corporate gold standard,
unlimited resources, did
every last service bulletin
and modification and
upgrade all that airplane.
Yeah.
You know, you can walk in their hangar
and eat off the floor, it's so clean.
And that's the type
of operation, you know,
those airplanes aren't
hanging on trees, right?
There's a lot of other
great airplanes out there too,
but you do have to, you
know, you can open the page
and see there's 30 aircraft for sale,
but you really got to dig and see, okay,
how are they operated?
Where in the world are they based?
We do a lot of
imports, but it can, as more,
again, building the team, right?
When you do an import,
it gets even more complex.
Do you find on, you
know, talking about the,
I don't know, like the best
airplane or the best deal,
if you're talking
about the best airplane,
is it also, because if I'm
thinking about jet ownership,
I'm thinking like, I'm
not going to have this thing
for the rest of my life,
at some point I'm going
to want to sell it, right?
So do you have that as part of the fact
or what you're talking
about, where it's like,
this will maintain a lot
of that value, you know,
if you maintain the aircraft.
Every time we go into a deal,
I'm thinking of the Agri-S tragedy.
Absolutely. I always want to
understand, restyle, to the
point where on the finance,
we can run analyses that predict what
it's going to be worth
based on a couple of different
sensitivities, okay,
and a strong market, a
middle market, a weak market,
but more importantly, on the front end,
you know, where is this
going to be in three or five,
first we're going to
understand how long that someone
thinks they're going to own it, right?
Where is this going to be, okay,
you have a 15 year old plane,
well, if you're going
to sell it in five years,
now it's 20 years old, and just again,
depending on the maintenance cycle,
what it's equipped with, you know, again,
we want to buy after a
big maintenance inspection,
not on the way in, unless
sometimes people want to
do a big refurbishment process.
That's right.
Then now walking into
an eight year, 16 year,
or 10 year inspection.
Maybe isn't the worst thing in the world,
if you want to make the jet your own,
a lot of times those people say,
well, I'm going to own
it for 10 or 15 years,
don't think I've had people say to me,
don't even, I appreciate it, Matt,
you're wanting to think
about my exit strategy,
I really appreciate that,
but pretend I don't care
about residual value,
okay, well then we can go buy
that plane overseas that had hail damage
because it's a really good deal.
You told me you don't
care about residual value,
let's go buy that plane,
it's a really good deal
on a late model, low
time airplane, let's do it,
and my customer's okay with
it because he wanted to own it
for a long time so the residual value
was less important to him.
Right, right, and then
they can do whatever they want
with it because they got a great deal,
use that extra money to--
Yeah, and if you're
gonna worry about the resale.
For the longer term owners,
but if you're gonna own it
for two, three, or five
years, now the residual value,
now you have to buy it right
and you have to have a plane
that's gonna have
another buyer after that,
you don't want to be the
last buyer of an airplane,
in that instance with a two, three,
five year ownership scenario.
Can you talk to me about
the consultative approach
because one of the
things when I talk to you
about Guardian Jet and the
way that you approach things,
you talk about your consultative approach
and all the resources you
have and all the data you have,
when did you guys make the
decision that that was the way
that you wanted to do business?
Because that can't be cheap, right?
No, we have other brokers
that look at us all the time
and say, boy, you have a lot of overhead
and just it works for us, right?
Sale in the field, they go get business,
and then the central
location in Guilford,
and now we have an office in London
and we have one in Denver now as we keep
and again salesmen all over the world,
but they get business and
then the team in Guilford
runs the deals and our consulting team
and we have a technical
team, we have a legal team,
so we have all aspects of a deal too.
Again, we still have a partner with
teammates on your team,
but the consultative
approach has helped us
because when somebody calls
or when you get referred into somewhere,
you can't have the first conversation,
be, okay, well, here's my proposal
and let me know when you're ready,
call me when you're ready to buy.
I literally won a deal earlier this year
and the guy told me, well, I
had feedback from somebody else,
but the story was, well, why did,
I was like, I'm just curious,
I was like, I'm thrilled
that he picked us obviously,
but why did he go with Guardian Jet?
He was talking to
some other great brokers.
Well, one of the brokers actually said,
hey, yeah, there's a
lot of hand holding here,
and it's like he put it in these words,
but there's a lot of hand holding here,
call us in three months
when you're ready to buy,
and I'm sitting here
getting my consulting team
to produce cash flows for a Challenger
versus a Golfstream versus a Phenom
because, you know, right,
light, super mid and heavy,
or large cabin, and the
guy was just so thankful,
he just said, oh my
God, this is just such,
it's not just a one year budget,
it's a 10 year budget, right,
buy, fly, sell, tax benefits,
so again, we just, but
we're set up like that.
That's easy for us because
we've had the infrastructure,
so it took a long time to build,
but I think we realized that was the way
because a lot of people had questions
and there was so little data out there,
and I think there's more available now
with obviously the internet,
the internet's here to stay, I think,
we get the worldwide
information superhighway.
So there's a lot more
information out there,
but we realized, and
again, kudos to Mike Dwyer,
our founder, and I learned
everything I know from that man,
but he had a vision,
and he seems to always
be ahead of this stuff,
but he just saw people needed help,
whether it was a high net worth
individual who knew nothing,
or a high net worth
individual that owned something,
but knew nothing about the next phase
or another segment of the market,
or a director of aviation
operations for a big company,
whether they operate
one, three, or seven jets,
like you had done in your former life,
we realized that even the most
business-savvy director
of aviation from pilot
and no business background
to pilot and very
savvy business background,
they all need help.
They all need help
reporting up to executives
and making decks and
bringing subject matter experts
to help tell the message and talk about,
so that consultative approach
has really, really helped us out a lot.
Yeah, and so what you do is you're making
these resources available prior to them
even talking to you,
from my understanding, like going on the
Guardian Jet website
and everything, there's resources there.
Our, you can go on the
Guardian Jet website,
we have director of IT again,
just because of very,
very analytical approach,
but our resting pulse, talk about a
transparent approach,
our resting pulse is
you go to our website,
John Q. Public can
click, you can do range rings,
you can look at cabin comparison,
you can look at cost comparison,
it's a high level, but
it's powerful stuff there,
there's a lot of data there.
We want you to call us,
and what we've learned with that
consultative approach is,
if 99 out of 100 guys hire us,
there might be that one
guy that uses us for our data
and does something else or
does something on his own,
but there's 99 clients
there out of that 100,
because they see that you care
and they see that
you're going out of your way
to give them good data and
that we have that good data
available quickly.
And so, I think
putting that all out there
has worked for us, right?
A lot of people, I
think, shield information
to use it as their edge.
We think differently, we think, okay,
I'm talking to the
smartest guys in the world,
I want to give them data and let them
read the tea leaves.
I want to be here to coach and advise
and give my recommendation when asked,
but it's not a, never feel pushy with us.
Well, it's gotta be great to have
somebody that's like,
hey, I read all the
stuff you guys put out,
and I think, it's like,
that probably saves you time
in having to educate them with stuff,
if they're already out
there educating themselves
on the stuff you're putting out.
One of the things that
we have is Jet Finder
and you can plug in, hey, I
have this many passengers,
this is my budget, this
is how far I want to go,
and it'll produce some
available options there.
And you can set alerts
where you get notified
if there's a price
reduction or a new airplane
came to market or an airplane sold,
and I'll get texts or calls one morning
and they'll say, hey, did
you see that Challenger 300
that came out last night?
No, but give me 10
minutes, let me go get school.
Because they're getting alerts
and they're seeing this
stuff sometimes before.
I'm seeing it because my
researchers are putting it in live
real quick and learn about a plane
most of the time
before it comes to market.
What's the future hold for you guys?
Where are you going?
Because I know we talked about some
international offices,
some other lines you're getting into.
Well, so near term is
finishing Q4 strong, right?
Again, I said it, 35
to 40% of our business
has done this quarter.
100% tax depreciation is certainly--
Not a bad time to buy a job.
Has certainly helped.
And again, we said
whether that's actually
gonna be useful for
someone as they dive into there,
or if it's just a mental thing,
and there's just a lot of
people that wanna buy and sell
by the end of the year.
Long-term vision, we set out about a year
and almost two years
now to double the company
in three years, and
we're on our way to do that.
We expanded into the light jets,
so we set out a growth in the light jets,
because again, our thing--
Describe light jets for me,
because I don't know,
like a jet's a jet to me,
so what's a light jet?
And I say light jets, and
we've always done light jets.
We've sort of specialized in
the super minute and above.
We've always done light jets.
I say light jets, to me
light jets means light jets
and smaller, so light
jets and turboprops,
so it's like patient jets, phenoms,
Pilatus, King Air, right?
Right, so some of your
shorter range smaller jets?
Yes. Yeah, okay.
I just named model,
that didn't tell you what--
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't
know what those are either.
(laughing)
Everything's a 300 in this world.
Right, we always talk about--
We just got another one.
Right, right.
Yeah, G300, talented 300.
Yeah, G300.
300, 300.
Which one am I talking about?
Yeah, smaller cabins don't go as far,
don't cost nearly as much to operate,
and there's a lot of
growth in that aspect.
I mean, there's just so many people
with planes in this
country, it's just unbelievable.
So we started the light jet business,
and again, it's light
jets and turboprops,
and it's really, again,
we alluded to this before,
but it's not always
hitting grand slams for us,
it's volume, it's a lot of deal, right?
Again, doing the right thing over time,
starting with a guy small
and then kind of grow with him.
So we see a lot of growth in that,
we have whole companies focused on it,
we have two main people
that are focused on that,
we wanna grow that over the
next couple of years as well.
Nice.
What would you say to
somebody that is getting into
the idea of jet ownership,
maybe for the first time?
Where should they start?
What should they be thinking about first?
That's a good question.
So presumably, you
would have already been
flying private somehow, right?
It happens, but it's rare
that, this has happened,
where people come in and they say,
I've never charted an
airplane, I've never,
I don't know anything, just I have money,
I need to tax write
off, and I think it's cool,
I wanna, that's happened, that's rare.
And we tell those guys,
you should go charter jet,
go charter jet, get to feel what you,
get to see what you like,
see what cabin size is,
what internet connectivity,
what type of missions
you're doing, right?
So go charter jet.
So someone that's now,
so again, presumably,
they would have had X
number of hours flying for years.
So what I say to these guys, again,
I said it earlier in this conversation,
really understand your mission.
Buy an airplane for 80
or 90% of your mission.
Don't buy the airplane
because you take one trip
to Japan every year, right?
Yeah.
So buy a plane that fits
80 to 90% of your mission,
really understand the cost.
There is no rush,
although it happens all the time,
and it's great for--
We're in Q4, man, I gotta get this done.
We get that all
November 10th that people need
an airplane by the end of the year,
and we'll work with them,
we'll work at their pace,
we will do that.
But to my end, it's because
people's total tax structure
come into focus
towards the end of the year,
so they know now what type of
write off they're gonna need.
But for me, it's there's no rush.
I will move at the rush
pace, but there is no rush.
You have time to really do your research.
I mean, the amount of research I do
when I go buy a car or something,
I mean, it's amazing how
sometimes people just jump right in.
So understand the
mission, understand the costs
of ownership and
everything that goes into ownership.
So I think those are the
two most important things.
Yeah, I totally agree.
The whole team that you trust, right?
That's the main thing here,
is that you gotta know who you trust.
Any final thoughts
before we wrap things up?
I think we covered a lot.
I could take three hours
to do something like this.
So we did a lot in 40 minutes here.
And I just wanna say
thanks very much for having me.
I think you guys are on to
something really cool here.
Excuse me.
I think we're in a very cool industry.
Again, I said it earlier, it's opaque.
It's niche, it's very cool.
And not a lot of people are
doing this in other industries
in other areas of life,
you're seeing the podcasts
and things like that.
So the fact that you guys are doing this,
I think it's really cool.
Thank you.
Pleasure to be here.
The whole thing is just to get this
information out there
kind of like your vault.
And so people can click on episodes
and see what they wanna
see and learn what they need.
But dude, thank you for
taking the time to do it.
I mean, this is great.
You guys are kind of
at the top of the game
on jet brokership, or what is it,
brokership brokerage?
Brokerage.
Yeah.
On jet brokerage.
And I think it's just a great example
of how to do things
right in the industry.
And that's the kind of
perspective we're looking to have.
So once again, thanks so
Matt Walter, Guardian Jetffff.
Appreciate it, Matt.
Always, thanks very much.
All right, awesome.