Castle & Cooke Aviation: California company slowly builds U.S. chain

Castle & Cooke Aviation burst onto the FBO scene at the NBAA Convention with the purchase of two FBOs, the former Circle Rainbow facility at Honolulu I

By Matt Thurber • Editor-in-Chief

January 3, 2008

Castle & Cooke Aviation burst onto the FBO scene at the NBAA Convention with the purchase of two FBOs, the former Circle Rainbow facility at Honolulu International Airport in Hawaii and Everett Jet Center at Paine Field in Everett, Wash. The acquisition is the first in the company’s plans to add more aviation assets and build an FBO chain in the U.S. and possibly in Europe.

Castle & Cooke has quietly operated a “corporate aviation facility” at Van Nuys Airport in California since 1981. Technically not an FBO, the facility sells jet fuel from a 50,000-gallon fuel farm and rents hangar and office space. One of its tenants is Eclipse Aviation’s Van Nuys service center. The reason Castle & Cooke doesn’t call the Van Nuys facility an FBO, according to executive vice president Steven Friedmann, is that “the rules in Van Nuys require large amounts of acreage to have an FBO. It’s a distinction unique to Van Nuys. In any other city, this would be an enormous FBO.”

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