Flight Schools: Time to Think Outside the Box

It wasn’t that many years ago that the majority of FBOs were defined as “full-service companies” offering flight school training, new and used aircraft sales, charter, maintenance, hangars, and terminal facilities.

The business model was to market to potential pilots, both professional and recreational, train them, sell them an airplane, hope they would trade up, maintain the airplane, hangar it and, of course, sell them fuel and various services. As the pilot grew in experience and need, the FBO could make a good living by selling the next biggest aircraft.

It was a cradle-to-the-grave concept, and it seemed to work just fine.

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