“Two years ago we were doing Wall Street road shows and rock band tours,” Andy Priester, director of charter operations at Chicago-based Priester Aviation, told AIN last month. “But the economy and world events have made those types of charters now almost extinct. Our new charter customer is the individual who can’t afford to spend five hours waiting for the privilege to get on a cramped airliner.”
He said the charter and management company, headquartered at Palwaukee Airport, is on track to log up to 10,000 charter flight hours this year, at least 20 percent more than last year. “In terms of our customer base, we’re aggressively trying to build strong relationships with the national charter brokers,” Priester said. “At the same time, we’re increasing and strengthening our local customer base. At this point we have a repeat customer base of more than 400 clients.
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