Why Private Jets Are the Next Big Investment Trend | Tia Minzoni DSH #1422
Discover how private jets are transforming from luxury to smart business investments and why now is the perfect time to jump in. Learn about 100% depreciation write-offs, the future of shared private aviation, and how Stella Jets is revolutionizing the industry with innovation and transparency. 🌟
Whether you’re curious about private aviation, investment opportunities, or just love hearing insider secrets from industry leaders, this episode is for you! Watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets. 📺 Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more eye-opening stories on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 💼✈️
CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Intro
00:27 - Tia Lopez Buys Stella Jets
02:05 - Are Jets a Good Investment
03:18 - 100% Write Off Coming Back
07:45 - Business Class to Private Jet Experience
08:22 - Sharing Private Jets Benefits
09:51 - JSX Overview
11:30 - Hectic Times Around Big Events
13:22 - Most Expensive Flight Stories
14:23 - Overcoming Fear of Flying
17:52 - Passing the Torch to Next Generation
19:31 - Future of Aviation Trends
21:58 - Autopilot Technology Explained
24:20 - Turning Down Flights Reasons
25:30 - Pilot Hours Regulations
27:23 - How to Book a Flight with Stellar
27:35 - Don’t Ask for a Free Jet Ride
27:39 - Cost of Booking a Flight
APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application
BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: jenna@digitalsocialhour.com
GUEST: Isaiah Martin
https://www.instagram.com/mimiminzoni/
SPONSORS:
THERASAGE: https://therasage.com/
SPIRIT PARTNER:
AMNISIA: https://buyamnisia.com/
https://www.instagram.com/amnisiavodka
Jakub K Koziol: @jakubkkoziol
LISTEN ON:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759
Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/
The views and opinions expressed by guests on Digital Social Hour are solely those of the individuals appearing on the podcast and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the host, Sean Kelly, or the Digital Social Hour team.
While we encourage open and honest conversations, Sean Kelly is not legally responsible for any statements, claims, or opinions made by guests during the show. Listeners are encouraged to form their own opinions and consult professionals for advice where appropriate.
Content on this podcast is for entertainment and informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical, financial, or professional advice.
Digital Social Hour works with participants in sponsored media and stays compliant with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations regarding sponsored media. #ad
#aerospacemarketing #aviationsustainability #jetcharter #aviationgrowth #aviationtrends
Listen and follow along
Transcript
So we actually have less crashes in Q1 of 2025 than we have for the decade before.
It's actually safer to fly now than it's ever been.
So I think when you do a little bit of education, whether it's about fear of flying or fear of anything, the more you know, the less scary it is.
Yeah, turbulence does give me anxiety, but knowing that actually helps me.
Okay, guys, we're going to talk private jets and private aviation today.
We got one of the experts in the space, Tia, from Stella Jets.
Thanks for coming on today.
Thanks for having me.
Excited to be here.
Yeah, it's a very interesting and fascinating space, right?
How long have you been in this?
I actually bought Stella Jets a little less than three years ago, and the learning curve was incredible, but I think I've learned more in the last three years than I have in my entire life.
Yeah, there does feel like a lot of gatekeeping in the private aviation space about like who's actually running it, what the best deals are and everything, right?
Yeah,
there's a lot of dinosaur practices in the industry.
So we came in and we're like, we're innovating and we've been having fun doing it.
Yeah, it was kind of old school.
You didn't really know where to get flights, right?
How to get the best deal.
Yeah.
And we do broker service.
So when we came in, we partnered with 700 aircraft operators.
So through the operators we have partners with, we have access to just a ton.
of jets.
So you can go to one place and find all the best deals instead of having to call around, figure out who's going to give you a deal, who's going to treat you right.
So yeah, so it's been, it's been fun being able to do that and put people on planes.
Nice.
Yeah.
There's a lot of brokers and middlemen upselling, right?
Yeah, for sure.
And, you know, there's independent brokers and then there's broker companies.
So for us, Stella Jets, we do a lot of brokerage, but we're a company that we do quality control, quality checks.
If a plane doesn't pass the maintenance checks, if their pilots don't have the right amount of hours, we won't book them.
So even you could probably get a better price on a plane that might, you know, drop a wing or something.
But we as a company have so much
P's and Qs that you wouldn't have with independent broker.
So it also depends on who you're working with.
How do you see jets as an investment like over time?
Do they perform well?
You know, it kind of, there's a lot of factors that go in.
So for the right person, it's a great investment.
If it's someone who, you know, they're flying a lot of hours and they don't have time to charter it or they don't buy the right aircraft.
You really have to get an expert in the industry that can go over exactly what you need, what you want, what you're looking to get out of it.
that'll be super straight with you and just say, hey, man,
you're dreaming here.
This is never going to happen.
Because sometimes you'll have people that are like, oh, yeah, you can make a million dollars a year, but if you're flying the aircraft so much, you can't charter it, or you buy an aircraft that's not able to go on a charter certificate.
then it's a lot harder to make money.
So you definitely want to partner with an expert in the field if you're going to try and invest in aircraft.
Charter certificate.
I haven't heard of that before.
Yeah, it's called a 135.
So it has to be registered as a 135.
And there's a lot of qualifications that the aircraft has to have to make sure that it's safe to go on a charter certificate.
If you own it, you're the only one flying it, then it's a 91 certificate and it doesn't have to pass as much of these regulations as if you're going to charter it.
That makes sense.
Plus now there's rumors about the write-off coming back, right?
Yeah, super excited about that.
So with,
you know, we're looking at, it's actually,
we've got probably less than 60 days before we expect expect it to pass and it's 100 depreciation which we've had in the past and so we know kind of how the market's going to go um what that means is that you know an airplane is a business asset it's a business depreciation so you can do the take the depreciation over five years over 10 years or with this bonus depreciation now you can write off the entire amount of what the jet is worth even if you only put down 20
and you can write the entire thing off in the first year if you would like to wow so yeah up to 100% depreciation, which means if you buy, you know, if you have a $2 million tax bill and you buy a $4 million aircraft, even though you might have only put down less than $1 million on this plane, you get to write off all $4 million of that and put $2 million back in your pocket that you would have had to pay the IRS.
Wow.
Yeah.
That is crazy.
That's what Grant Cardone did, right?
Yeah, yeah.
We had 100% bonus depreciation.
It went away and now it's coming back.
So we're really excited about it.
And typically we see when this bonus depreciation hits, you have people who have smaller aircraft sell them and buy bigger aircraft.
Then you have new people coming into the market that buy up the smaller aircraft.
So we end up having limited inventory.
And just like with real estate or anything else, when your inventory is limited, prices start to go up.
So I always tell everybody, don't wait until the last minute.
Don't wait until the depreciation is passed.
Get an aircraft now because it's going to be retro to the first of the year.
So you'll still be able to write off 100%, but you got to lock in that price before.
The Tri-Light from Therasage is no joke.
Medical grade red and near infrared light with three frequencies per light, deep healing, real results, and totally portable.
It's legit.
Photo biomodulation tech in a flexible on-body panel.
This is the Tri-Light from Therasage and it's next level red light therapy.
It's got 118 high-powered polychromatic lights, each delivering three healing frequencies, red and near-infrared, from 580 to 980 nanometers.
Optimal penetration, enhanced energy, skin rejuvenation, pain relief, better performance, quicker recovery, and so much more.
Therasage has been leading the game for over 25 years and this panel is FDA listed and USB powered.
Ultra-soft and flexible and ultra-portable.
On-body red light therapy I use daily and I take it everywhere I travel.
This is the Thera 03 Ozone Module from Therasage.
It's a portable ozone and negative ion therapy in one.
It boosts oxygen, clears and sanitizes the air, and even helps your mood.
It's a total game changer at home or or on the go.
This little device is the Thera O3 Ozone Module by Therasage and it's one of my favorite wellness tools.
In the Sana, it boosts ozone absorption through your skin up to 10 times, oxygenagating your blood and supporting deep detox.
Outside the sauna, it purifies the air, killing germs, bacteria, viruses, and mold, and it improves mood and sleep.
Negative ion therapy.
It's compact, rechargeable, and perfect for travel, planes, offices, hotel rooms, you name it.
It's like carrying clean energy wherever you go.
This is the Thera H2Go from Therasage, the only bottle with molecular hydrogen structured water and red light in one.
It hydrates, energizes, and detoxes water upgrades.
The Thera H2GO from Therasage isn't just a water bottle.
It's next level hydration.
It infuses your water with molecular hydrogen, one of the most powerful antioxidants out there.
That means less oxidative stress, more energy, and faster recovery.
But here's what makes it stand out.
It's the only bottle that also structures your water and adds red light to supercharge it.
It's sleek, portable, and honestly, I don't go anywhere without it.
Prices increase because our inventory is definitely going to get light.
So do you see when this passes prices of planes going up a lot?
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
We have, you know, we're helping someone buy an aircraft right now.
And we did the numbers based on historical data.
And this plane would go up almost $2 million
within the next three to four months if he doesn't lock in the price before that depreciation passes.
That's insane.
Yeah.
It's a lot of money.
Wow.
So just from an investment point of view, someone should look into this right now.
There's a short window to take advantage of this.
Yeah.
Even if you were going to buy an aircraft, depreciate it and sell it in a year or two, it makes perfect sense because prices of planes are going to go up and you get to have the full write-off.
Yeah.
Do you see people switching from business class to private these days?
Yes and no.
We really see, it's kind of a stair-step program.
So, you know, I kind of see it as the dollar signs on Google restaurants, right?
Where it's like, is this $1 sign or five dollar signs so you have like spirit which is your one dollar sign you have your american your delta which is two you have your jsx and your arrow which is semi private that would be a three and then you have your private which would be a five So we've seen that in the industry, there's not a lot of space in the four.
And I think that's really where the industry is going is with shared private.
So we have a brand called Stella Share.
We can actually share a private jet and share the cost on these, you know,
trips that more, than you're going to go on.
Sometimes you have a long trip.
Let's say we're going Van Euys to New York.
We want to have a big aircraft.
We don't want to have to have a fuel stop.
So, even if it's one or two people, you have to have a really big aircraft.
So, it only makes sense that everybody's like, why can't I share this?
So, we do that with Stella Share.
I really think that's where the industry is going.
And what's cool to answer your question is you see people from business and first class that are going to jump into semi-private, which is a lot easier step than going all the way into getting a full private charter, which is a much bigger increase in how much you're going to pay on that.
Yeah.
That's a good point, though.
Coast to coast private is super expensive.
Yeah.
But there is room for maybe that $4 sign range.
Like, like I wouldn't pay 40K for that, but maybe 10.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, absolutely.
If I could find people to split it with, I would do that.
Yeah.
And I think that's really where our industry is going.
I think there's a lot of people that are trying to figure out Semi and shared private.
JSX has done a lot of the hard work in the industry.
So we, you know, we've looked and researched people that have done a good job, people that, you know, went out of business, people that did it right, did it wrong.
There's so many lessons in the people that did it wrong.
And we've been, we've been building this for five years and we just launched this year and it's been incredible.
Nice.
So we're hoping to grow it pretty big and get some of these investors who are buying aircraft to put them into that higher margin company and, you know, really help everybody else.
Just a win-win all the way around.
Yeah.
Shout out to JSX because I hated flying.
prior to JSX.
Yeah.
Like absolutely dreaded it.
But JSX makes it so seamless.
Yeah.
And with commercial, you know, you've got to find parking, pay for parking, or shuttle to the airport.
Then you've got TSA
and, you know, you've got germs and crowds and delays.
And it's just, it's just so stressful.
Yeah.
And most of the time they're not going to fly into smaller towns as well.
So a lot of times we have people that will fly with us like golfers who need to go to a tournament and it's in a small town.
They land on a commercial plane.
They've still got a three-hour drive.
Damn.
Where with private or semi-private or shared private you can actually get into some of these smaller places you arrive at the airport 15 minutes before your plane goes you know flies out you drive right up to the plane they take your bags out of the car put them on the plane hop on take a nap we have a client that we make it make sure we have the bed made out every time he gets on the flight because we know he's going to take a nap you know there's just so much um ease to being able to fly private takes so much people think that you fly private for luxury most of our clients fly private to save time and because they need to not be stressed or they're able to do meetings in the air between they do a meeting in this city, do a meeting in the air, do a meeting in the next city, and they're home that night to coach their son's, you know, football, TV football game.
So there's just a lot of convenience to it.
Absolutely.
Time is money, right?
Absolutely.
Especially for people flying private.
Their hourly rates are probably in the tens of thousands.
Yeah.
And I think you hit a level where you realize that your time is more valuable than a dollar.
And so, you know, that's why the majority of people that fly private fly private.
Time's just their most valuable currency.
Yeah.
Does stuff get hectic around big events like F1 and all the baller events?
Yeah.
There's so many times I feel like I'm standing on top of a mountain, everything's on fire and I've got a water gun.
But yeah, it gets super hectic.
We definitely have busy seasons and there's so many events.
We've tried to help with that.
And sometimes you can't even land at those events because, you know, say for Super Bowl, the landing spots at these airports can be bought out a full year ahead of the actual game.
You could buy out a landing strip.
Yeah.
Not a landing strip, but a spot so they know that they can have you know x amount of aircraft lounge land per hour after you get to that max nobody else can land at that airport and then you also have to park the plane somewhere so the parking spots get reserved early wow so you'll have some of the bigger people on charter that go and buy up multiple landing spots and multiple parking spaces a year ahead of the event before they've ever sold a flight because they know what the demand is wow yeah so they'll sell those spots exactly so a lot of the stuff we do with stellar share is around events like that.
Because if five of us need to get a plane and go to the event and there's only one landing spot, somebody has to land an hour out and drive in and it makes it a little less, you know, convenient.
Right.
Excuse me.
So for a Super Bowl, for F1, for a lot of these events, even the Aspire tours and stuff like that, we try and say, okay, if everybody can get to this one central location, then we'll just split the cost of a private jet flying together.
And then we need one spot instead of five.
And it's much easier.
Yeah, yeah, I remember the Super Bowl here like two years ago, the private airport was full, like it was Henderson, yeah, completely full, so you couldn't even fly in.
And F1 was crazy out here in Vegas.
Oh, it was!
Oh my gosh, yeah, because a lot of international private jets are coming in, right?
Yeah, yeah.
And we're doing, um, I think we're doing F1 Montreal in a couple weeks.
Um, and we have some international events that are coming up too.
So, you want to talk about an expensive private jet flight?
What's the most expensive flight you've heard of?
The most expensive flight we've done, um,
like with Stella Jets, was over 300,000.
Oh my gosh.
Where was that from?
It was from the United States, but we did several stops overseas in Asia.
Wow.
And then brought them back.
So, you know, you have to think, you have to have two sets of crews because we have duty time.
So pilots can't fly for 24 hours, just like a truck driver couldn't drive for 24 hours.
So when you have a flight that goes over duty time, which depending on if it's a Park 91 or a Part 135,
10 to 12 hours, and the flight flight is a 13, 16 hour flight.
You have to have other pilots on board to switch out.
So there's a lot of things that factor in.
It's not just about like the cost of the fuel and the landing fees.
But yeah, over $300,000.
Jeez.
Yeah.
It's insane.
Yeah.
It's a whole salary in one flight.
Right.
Right.
Holy crap.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's nuts.
There's levels to this stuff.
Let's talk about these crash statistics because a lot of people fear flying.
I think it's one of the most common fears in the world, right?
Yeah.
But if you you actually look at the data, which you have some facts.
Yeah.
I'm, I'm a big data person.
My former life, I was a data-driven marketing expert.
So I always look at the numbers.
So anytime someone says something, I'm doing some research looking at data.
And so when we started getting a lot of media attention on crashes this year, I was like, what's happening?
There's not, there's not an increase in crashes.
Why are we getting all this media attention?
So, you know, a couple of things that.
that factor into that is there's a lot of things politically that are going on that regarding FAA, TSA.
I hope you guys are enjoying the show.
Please don't forget to like and subscribe.
It helps the show a lot with the algorithm.
Thank you.
Etc.
And anytime something becomes political, it becomes media.
So we actually have less crashes in Q1 of 2025 than we have for the decade before.
It's actually safer to fly now than it's ever been.
Wow.
But the way that they measure,
you know, the safety of aircraft is they measure not only how many aircraft have crashed, but how many people have died in aircraft crashes.
So anytime you have a commercial flight that is in a crash like we have this year, your death toll goes up, which makes it huge media.
So, you know, a lot, there's a lot to factor in.
But when you look at it right now, the statistics are, you know, people that die in a car crash, it's one in 93 car crashes.
There will be someone who dies in a car crash.
In plane crashes, it's actually one in 13 million.
Wow.
So it's way safer to fly than it is to drive.
If you live in Dallas like me, those numbers may be a little different.
But also, you know, I think for me, because a long time ago, I had a fear of flying.
I'm scared of height.
So I'd never jump out of a plane, right?
But I started learning the aeronomics.
I started learning how planes actually function.
And, you know, we were just talking about this on the flight over here from LA to Vegas, where there was a little bit of turbulence.
There's always more turbulence when it's hot,
right?
I didn't know that.
So there's nothing wrong with the plane.
You're completely safe.
It's the atmosphere that makes a difference in how much turbulence you have.
Is that why flying into Vegas is always kind of bumpy?
Always.
Yeah.
And if you're going over mountains, well, air kind of ramps up off mountains, and the planes have to adjust for these different ramps of air that causes turbulence.
Nothing's wrong with your plane.
So I think when you do a little bit of education, whether it's about fear of flying or fear of anything, the more you know, the less scary it is.
Yeah.
Turbulence does give me anxiety, but knowing that actually helps me mentally process that yeah well you take your your crystal
and you just breathe there's been a few times on flights where i've actually prayed yeah i'm not gonna lie i say a prayer every time i'm i get on a plane and i say you know please keep us yeah please protect us on the ground in the air and as we land please keep us in your faithful hands i say every single flight yeah um it makes me feel better yeah you know yeah i've been in the back seat on like some commercial flights is it bumpier in the back usually yeah i think so yeah so i guess it was bumpier and oh my gosh yeah i try to never fly i was thinking about texting my mom like if i don't make it right i love you yeah who who's the one person you text when you get on a plane is there someone that you're like i'm on the plane let's go it's always my what my soon-to-be wife yeah but if i'm with her it would be my mom yeah i grew up in a single mother household so she means a lot to me for sure yeah same Oh, you did too?
Well, I am a single mom or I was single mom.
And so I actually text my youngest daughter who's part of the company.
I'm just like, I'm boarded.
Love you.
Wow.
Make sure to take care of the company if anything happens to me.
And she's like, love you too.
I love that.
You want to pass the torch to her eventually?
Yeah.
You know, she's our VP.
She started interning with me at 14.
Wow.
Yeah.
And she's 26 now.
So we've been working together for a really long time.
And she's just brilliant.
She's, she does operations.
She's our vice president.
So, you know, I'm the one that has all these crazy ideas and she's the one that sits down and writes it all out and figures out how we're actually going to accomplish it.
So we're a pretty good team.
I love it.
Male-dominated space, right?
Oh, for sure.
Less than 6% of aviation companies actually are ran by women.
Wow.
Yeah.
And then if you talk about putting brown skin on those women, it's less than 1%.
So, you know, the industry has a lot of
diversity as far as bringing in more women.
And I think when you diversify an industry, you get a lot of innovation.
So it gets exciting to see all these young people coming in, you know, people from different backgrounds, different cultures, and seeing what they say.
Wait a minute, there's a problem.
How come no one's fixed it?
In aviation, a lot of the time is, why do we need to fix it?
It's been working just fine.
That sounds cool and fun, but we make plenty of money doing it this way, which is why we have dinosaur tech, which is why we have dinosaur practices.
So it's been really fun to come in and kind of figure out how can we innovate the industry because we want to.
A lot of people in the industry, they make plenty of money.
They just have no need to do it.
It's not that they don't see it or that it's not there.
They just don't have any need to do it.
So we're really ambitious about kind of bringing aviation into the space that it should be.
What do you think are the biggest innovations to keep an eye out for?
I think one, the shared and semi-private is going to be a huge jump.
I think that's the first thing that we're going to see really take off.
And, you know, I've had people ask me, what's going to stop the next guy from doing a shared private or a semi-private?
And I said, hopefully nothing.
Like they can come in, they can franchise with me.
I'll ask Jeff Finster to help me figure it out.
You know what I mean?
But I think that's really where aviation is going to go because commercials become such a pain.
And then eventually you know eventually we'll have self-flying small planes that are like air taxis uh i think that's a little ways off because people still with me they don't want to fly a plane if it just has one pilot which is completely safe really um yeah so i think adaption to that is gonna um be a little slow even though technology is just almost there They're self-driving cars now.
The Waymos are crushing it.
Yeah, or especially around Vegas.
Y'all have a ton.
Yep.
Those aren't even Waymos.
I don't even know what those are, but yeah, self-driving cars are crushing it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we have the technology to have self-flying planes.
We just don't have all the regulations, the logistics, all of that kind of stuff figured out.
But I think it's going to come sooner than people think.
And I'm interested to see how us as humans adapt.
I think millennials and Gen Z
and the next generation, what are they, alphas or something?
Gen Alpha, yeah.
are going to adapt to everything super fast because of how they've been born.
Where my generation, Gen X, you know, we're a little bit slower.
Yeah.
So it's exciting.
It's exciting to see where it's going.
It's exciting to see that it's finally advancing and technology has been a huge, huge part of that.
Well, I don't know if people know this, but a lot of the flights right now are on autopilot.
Yeah.
I was talking to a pilot in Mexico on vacation.
He said he only, they even have auto landing on some of them.
Oh, yeah.
But he was saying he only does the takeoff and landing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's already pretty much flying itself.
Yeah.
You know, they watch the controls, make sure that they don't need to have a flight path path change if there's you know a storm or whatever but a lot of times in our flights our pilots will get up and come back and have a chat with us you know and that's funny um they'll ask you you know if they if they know you they'll say hey you're welcome to sit up in the front seat and get some video or whatever just i'd be so scared to touch something on x i know every time they do that i tell people don't touch anything yeah you know um but but yeah the planes the technology on the planes is incredible yeah so that'll be within the next five years i think yeah oh for sure and there's a jet called a vision jet.
Jeff and I were just talking about that.
You know, Jeff Finster is taking pilot lessons.
Really?
Yeah.
So I just did his podcast.
We had some fun conversations.
It's a good skill to have as a businessman.
For sure.
And even if you're just flying on a plane, like, don't you want to know how to land it?
Yeah.
And if you're scared of flying, it's a great thing to do, even if you're just taking the lessons in the books, because then you learn not to be so scared.
So kudos to him for doing that.
But we're talking about the vision jet, which the vision jet has the auto landing.
It can glide, even if all the engines stalled, it can glide and land itself.
Whoa.
It's so safe.
That's crazy.
Yeah, it's tiny.
It's like a little sedan inside,
but it's picking up steam quite a bit.
Some of these private jets have,
what's it called?
If their wings malfunction or something, they have a parachute.
Yeah.
You've seen that?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's amazing.
There's so much good technology out there right now.
Yeah, that's nuts.
There was a crash in, I think, the Henderson Airport like a few years ago.
Do you see that one?
I see all of them.
So I don't know which one you're talking about, but what happened?
Someone was taken off and someone was landing.
And I guess they didn't know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, air traffic control should be watching that.
Yeah.
There's a lot of issues right now happening up in New York with air traffic control because they've lost a lot of their, a lot of their people have retired.
They haven't replaced people.
We also see that with pilots.
You know, the baby boomers, there's so many of them and they're all retiring now.
And not enough.
We've had so many people in my generation, your generation that have become entrepreneurs or gone into, you know, for me, I never would have thought, oh, I could be a pilot one day.
Right.
And so now that this generation is retiring in massive numbers, it's hard to replace them in some of these jobs that have not been really heavily,
you know, I guess I'm going to say marketed to the younger generations because Like I didn't know I was going to grow up and own a private jet company.
You know, there's a lot of people who never ever thought of the opportunity to become a pilot so same thing with air traffic control you don't really you know you think oh i'm going to be a lawyer or a doctor or whatever you don't think oh i'm going to go work at air traffic control so lots of job opportunities in the industry across the board and they're really good um good jobs to have so that makes sense yeah have you ever turned down a booking the guy was sketchy or something oh for sure yeah absolutely i've turned it down on both sides i've turned it down on a customer base um and i've turned it down on the operator base because the aircraft didn't meet, you know, our quality standards, our safety standards.
They were trying to give you an old-ass plane or something.
Yeah.
And, you know, pilots that were like, you know, how long have you been flying?
Oh, 500 hours.
No, you need to be flying 5,000 hours before you're flying a jet.
And I won't put somebody on a plane that I wouldn't put my kids on.
And we do have clients that come to us and say, I just want the absolute cheapest thing.
And or they'll give us like, oh, my budget's, you know, five grand and we don't have a five grand flight.
Maybe we have an eight grand flight, but we know there's one out there he can get for five grand.
But I'm not going to put you on that if I wouldn't put my own son on it.
So if they're insistent on that, they just have to go to another broker.
Wow, respect to you for putting their safety before the dollar amount.
Yeah.
I always say I'm a mom first.
You know, my number one goal is to be the coolest grandma in the world.
But everybody, every client, there, I treat them just like I would treat my own kids.
And I want to make sure that I'm protecting them for their parents' sake, for their kids' sake.
You know, it's not just for our sake.
Yeah.
Yeah.
500 hours.
Wow.
Is that commercial or is there a difference with the hours?
Commercial is very, very strict on that.
With private aviation, it's not as strict unless you are a 135 operator.
So there's different places where you could kind of sneak in with low hours.
It's good when you're training.
You have to get hours somewhere.
Yeah.
But it's not necessarily good if we're putting a client on there and there's not someone, you know, a couple of pilots.
If something happens to the main pilot and it's not a plane that can land itself, guess what?
We need somebody that has some experience to take care of our clients.
If you're flying by yourself, I don't, you could have 100 hours, you can have 10 hours.
Like that's how you learn, but not when we're paying to put somebody else on your plane.
Yeah.
Has that happened to you on a flight where the main pilot couldn't function?
No, it's very rare.
Yeah.
Like you said, one out of 13 million.
Million, yeah.
There's a lot of flights too.
Yeah.
It's really rare.
It's just one of those things that it's so rare.
It's like a volcano erupting.
It's going to get news everywhere, right?
Because it doesn't erupt every day.
So it's the same thing in aviation.
Most of the things that happen are super, super rare.
So it gets a ton of media.
And then it feels like, oh, this could happen to me when it's very unlikely.
Yeah.
That media blitz, because it was like a crash a week, I felt like for like a month straight.
It even scared me.
I was supposed to go to DC for the inauguration and I was like, should I fly right now?
They did well with that attack.
Yeah.
I think a lot of people got scared that month.
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
Even today, I still hear people are like, I'm scared of it because of those crashes.
Yeah, we have people call us.
You You know, I've had a client that's a celebrity client and his mom called me and was like, I just need you to tell me, is it safe?
Because he's flying a lot.
And so I had to, you know, tell her, here's the statistics.
And it's actually safer now than it's ever been, which is absolutely true.
So, so yeah, they did a, they did a good thing or they did a good job in the media scaring people on these flights, but it became big media and, you know, that's their job.
So where can people watching this potentially get a flight off you?
StellaJets.com is where we're linked up.
So they can go on there anywhere
in any of our companies and show some interest and we'll get in touch.
Please don't ask for a free jet, guys.
Yeah, she gets asked that every day.
Yeah, costs some money, right?
Yeah, yeah, it costs money.
All right, well, check her out, guys.
Thanks for watching.
Thanks.