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“We’ve got a simple [business] philosophy. We seek out extremely difficult things to do in aviation—things that are so highly regulated or highly technical that they create barriers to entry. We meet those roadblocks and get beyond them. Then we have no competition, since no one else can do it or wants to do it.”
That insight’s source is Dent Thompson, chief operating officer of Phoenix Air, a unique air charter provider based in Cartersville, Georgia, 40 mi. north of Atlanta. Having applied that standard to potential but elusive opportunities for decades, what has resulted?
A fleet of 32 Gulfstream, Lear, Citation and other turbine aircraft, some highly modified, are used to:
■ Shuttle U.S. Defense Department employees among bases in California and Nevada daily.
■ Serve as bogus enemy aircraft in electronic warfare (EW) training scenarios against U.S. Navy crews.
■ Identify and clear civilian ships from active missile testing ranges.
■ Retrieve sick, injured or endangered Defense and State Department employees from locations throughout the world.
■ Airlift patients needing heart transplants or emergency cardiac care.
■ Transport explosives and other dangerous goods for the U.S. and foreign militaries and commercial customers.
■ Place patients afflicted with highly contagious diseases in a one-of-a-kind in-aircraft isolation unit and deliver them to highly specialized medical centers.
■ Carry endangered penguins for breeding, trained wolves for filming and abandoned dogs for adoption.
■ Develop an antenna system for a satellite company to provide airliner passengers with high-speed internet.
In addition, Phoenix Air Unmanned, an independent sibling launched in 2014, provides aerial drone inspection, data capture and imaging services including beyond-visual-line-of-sight operations for surveyors, utilities, oil companies and government agencies.
Today, Phoenix Air has 330 full-time employees including 45 pilots, 40 flight nurses, paramedics and a medical director, as well as maintenance, engineering, dispatch staffs and personnel for its fixed-base operation and flight school at Cartersville-Bartow County Airport, which it also manages. It has remote operations in California, Germany, Malta and Crete to fulfill long-term contracts with U.S. government entities; meanwhile, it has subcontracted a local operator to provide air services in Kenya.
When Thompson’s brother, Mark, a former U.S. Army helicopter pilot, launched Phoenix Air in 1979, it centered on a pair of Beech 18s delivering auto parts. There was no hint of the global and multifaceted operation over which the brothers preside today.
A business breakthrough came in less than a decade when the Army proposed the charter operation deliver ammunition by air to various bases. Doing so required Phoenix Air to undergo training in explosives handling, extensive vetting of staff and equipment, and detailed reviews of procedures by the U.S. Transportation Department’s hazardous materials office, the FAA and related military authorities. It was a time-consuming and laborious process, but once approved, the charter outfit won contracts with the government and oil exploration companies.
To accommodate those and expand into other roles, the Twin Beeches gave way to Lear 35s and 36s and then several Gulfstream models. When the FAA began regulating air ambulance activity in the early 1990s, many former operators withdrew, but Phoenix Air committed, dedicating and modifying two Lears and hiring a full-time medical staff.
And thanks to the company’s experience in serving the oil industry in Africa, Indonesia and elsewhere, it became a primary carrier for airlifting patients from remote locations to distant medical facilities. Its transport of 41 Ebola patients on a Gulfstream III housing its large biological containment and intensive care unit from West Africa to specialized care facilities in the U.S. and Europe a decade ago drew international notice and an award from the U.S. State Department.
Randy Davis, Phoenix Air’s general counsel, is also a 17,000-hr. airline transport pilot with several type ratings who regularly flies for the company. He recalls taking a Lear 36 to Maine for an electronic warfare training event with the crew of a new Aegis destroyer.
At a dinner there that included Navy officers, Davis wondered aloud why the service engaged Phoenix Air when it had such a formidable aircraft fleet of its own. A Navy captain quickly answered: “Because you show up and get the job done.”
That customer assessment would cheer any air charter operator, but especially one whose success comes from choosing and mastering “extremely difficult things.”
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