It seems that not a week goes by without an FBO company announcing either the acquisition of more FBOs or a one-FBO company buying half a dozen more FBOs to establish its own growing chain. Witness, for example, Volo Aviation’s rapid accumulation of five bases, when just last year the company had one FBO to supplement its primary charter business. See also Encore FBO’s move into the European market following the purchase of the Landmark Aviation FBOs, charter and sales businesses from DAE Aerospace. The latest surprise, at least as this was being written in late February, was Signature Flight Support’s announcement of intent to buy Hawker Beechcraft’s FBOs (but not the maintenance operations).
Given the frothy activity in the FBO marketplace, we thought it would be interesting to take a snapshot of the chain structure and list all the FBO companies that own three or more FBOs and those FBO locations. We fully expect this list to change; next year either these companies will own even more FBOs or the organizations that provide the money for acquisitions will have decided that the business isn’t as lucrative as they had thought.
