Chartered flights get a boost during the pandemic: Why fly coach when you can have your Board meeting at 38,000 feet.

• Author: Howell, Izzy

AS THE GLOBAL AIRLINE INDUSTRY LOST $370 BILLION in 2020, private aviation companies were quick to pick up the slack. CB SkyShare, for one, has seen an explosion in growth as more people have turned to flying private during the pandemic.

"You have at the top end of private flight, the NetJets and the FlexJets, which basically appeal to that top 0.05 percent," says Michael Patwin, VP of marketing at CB Skyshare. To contrast, CB Skyshare caterers to the top two percent. "That's a massive difference in how many people can actually afford the product and be able to experience the product."

The company differentiates themselves by allowing clients to own a fraction of an airplane, while gaining them access to the entire fleet--and they tear down and rebuild all their pre-owned planes to make them look and feel brand new. This can be something of a leg up compared with NetJets, a more expensive competitor that-even if a client pays into a new plane--doesn't guarantee they won't wind up flying on a much older plane.

And it's working. "In six years, we've gone from under 15 employees to, at the end of this year, somewhere between 150 and 200," Patwin says. "And we've grown 30x in our revenue."

THE PANDEMIC INCREASES DEMAND FOR CHARTERED FLIGHTS

"We offer regular charter if you just wanted to rent a jet one time and go to Las Vegas or Scottsdale for the weekend," says Cory Bengtzen, founder and president of CB

SkyShare. "Or, we have the jet sharing program where you co-own one of the airplanes and then you have access to the entire fleet. We also service people who want to own their own airplane through our brokerage."

Born and raised in Salt Lake City, Bengtzen spent 15 years in the auto industry, working his way up at a Ford dealership in Provo before opening two used car dealerships and owning his own bank. But Bengtzen always had a passion for aviation. After obtaining his pilot's license and buying his first plane when he was 22 years old, he spent years flying whenever he could spare time--until the Great Recession hit.

"2009 came, and the car business was definitely not doing as well as it had in the years past," he says. "I decided to sell the car dealership and just follow my passion for aviation. Back then, it was called CB Aviation, and our main, core focus was just buying and selling airplanes: basically [we were] a real estate agent, but our houses had wings, and they were all over the world."

In April and May of 2020, SkyShare's entire...