SKY'S THE LIMIT: Jim Segrave's private-jet company is going public, creating a potential Down East high flier.

• Author: Martin, Edward

Several thousand feet below the approach of a SflyExclusive jet into Kinston Regional Jetport, Lenoir County sprawls with farms and forests in one of the state's least robust areas economically. This, concedes President Tommy Sowers, is an unlikely site to attract former managers at the likes of Delta Air Lines, Spirit Airlines and Netjets, the leader in the business of selling shares of aircraft for use by businesses and wealthy individuals.

"But we can offer what companies based in large towns can't," says Sowers, who joined the company in July 2021 and has recruited executives from those companies.

The London School of Economics graduate is a former Army Green Beret major. He held senior positions in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, taught at Duke University and ran unsuccessfully for a Missouri congressional seat in 2009.

"I tell them if you want to be an anonymous business executive, you've got the rest of the world. [In Kinston], you can walk into Lowe's and people stop you and say, 'Hey, my cousin works there!' That's usually my closing pitch."

CEO Jim Segrave formed flyExclusive in 2015, five years after he sold a similar charter-jet service to Delta Air Lines for an undisclosed amount.

In October, the Kinston company said it will go public in early 2023 through a combination with a special purpose acquisition company led by New York investor Gregg Hymowitz of EnTrust Global. Segrave will be CEO of the company, which is expected to be valued at $600 million and trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

The plans come amid turmoil at the company and in the private-jet travel industry. On Dec. 16, flyExclusive cut 50 jobs "to insure the long-term health and success of the company," Sower said in a staff email. Operations, maintenance and HR units were affected.

Rival JetSuite ofDallas filed for bankruptcy protection in 2020. New York-based Wheels Up Experience, which went public by merging with a special-purpose company, has lost more than $350 million over the last three years. Its shares have slumped from $10 to about $1 since its IPO.

Sowers and Segrave say they can defy the odds. FlyExclusive flew about 43,000 hours in 2021, 75% more than a year earlier and the fastest growth rate of the industry's four largest companies. The market leader is Berkshire Hathaway's Netjets, which flew about 470,000 hours.

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