A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Business Aviation Services Editor

Curt Epstein

Atlantic Aviation has rolled out a new customer rewards program, Atlantic Ascend, which will provide exclusive fuel savings and service fee rebates across the FBO operator’s entire network.
According to the mega-chain, with its free enrollment, Ascend will complement, not replace, its existing Awards program.
“Atlantic Awards and Atlantic Ascend serve two different audiences, but they share the same philosophy,” said John Redcay, Atlantic’s chief commercial officer. “Atlantic Awards rewards individual pilots, while Ascend was built for the organizations behind the flying. Flight departments, charter operators, management companies, and aircraft owners now have a way to earn meaningful savings across their entire operation.”
Ascend provides two main benefits. Firstly, each subscriber will receive a weekly exclusive list of best-available, non-negotiated fuel pricing at all of Atlantic’s more than 100 locations in North America, including Alaska and Hawaii, offering improved predictability on fuel cost.
The second part of Ascend’s value proposition enables customers to unlock quarterly rebates of up to 15% on service fees such as aircraft parking; ground services (GPU, lavatory, water); hangarage; security and facility fees. The automatic savings are calculated based on the number of times a customer chooses an Atlantic facility at airports where there is competition. If they choose Atlantic 50% of the time or more in a quarter at those locations, the rebate levels will escalate as the percentage increases, and will then be multiplied by the number of consecutive quarters (up to three) the customers maintain that level. Those rebates will be applicable to operator spend across the entire Atlantic network, not simply at destinations where there is competition.
Following a beta test earlier this year at select locations, the company is now expanding the program nationwide.&nbsp;
“Atlantic Ascend represents a long-term investment in helping our customers create more value from the flying they already do,” said John Redcay, Atlantic’s chief commercial officer. “We took a thoughtful approach to the program’s development, using the initial rollout period to validate processes, refine the customer experience, and ensure the program could scale effectively across our network.”

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