Kenn Ricci’s recent conversation on The VIP Seat podcast was recorded inside the 747 mockup at The Jet Business in London, right after a planned interview about a deal. Ricci asked the hosts to keep recording because he had something else he wanted to say, and they warned their audience up front that it would probably be a lightning rod, which turned out to be an understatement.
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Ricci has earned the right to be heard. He chairs Flexjet and owns and manages more than a dozen companies across fractional ownership, jet cards, charter, maintenance, engineering, management, and brokerage, and in March he shared the SDC2026 keynote stage in Cleveland with Ed Bolen. He’s fearless and persistent, and when he calls himself a “40-year overnight success story,” he isn’t exaggerating. His read on the squeeze operators are feeling deserves our attention, though the remedy he’s floating could fracture the association that represents all of us.
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He’s right about the problem
Anyone who has sold airplanes for a living will recognize the market he describes. Flexjet has waiting lists on three aircraft types, and customers call asking to move up the list instead of asking for a discount. Buying has gone the other direction. OEM order books run three years out, so manufacturers have little reason to deal, and they’re steering their business models toward service and subscription revenue. Private equity has rolled up FBOs and maintenance shops along the way, and in Ricci’s telling that has pushed costs up and service down.
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He put four ideas on the table and called them trial balloons. The first targets source data. Ricci says aircraft buyers don’t receive wiring diagrams and full repair documentation despite FAA requirements, and without that data nobody can develop PMA parts or alternative repair methods, something the airlines get routinely. The second is an operator-only lobbying group. The third goes after special event fees, which he called “criminal.” He wants operators to align with airport authorities, since those fees are charged for using airport infrastructure and could fund ramp space and adjacent land instead of FBO returns. The fourth is a SPAC of roughly $300 million to back PMA and aftermarket competitors, on the condition that anything it funds stays available to every operator.
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He’s even told the FBO chains to their faces that operators are starting to hate them. If you’ve paid a graduation-weekend event fee in New York, you probably nodded along.
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His list leaves out the issue most Part 91 operators would put first, which is privacy. Registry data can be paired with flight tracking to connect an aircraft’s movements to its owner, and whole-aircraft owners spend real effort shielding themselves through LLCs, trusts, LADD and PIA. Fractional customers fly shared aircraft under the operator’s call sign and get much of that anonymity built in. That’s worth noticing, since the gap he skipped is the one that matters least to his own customers.
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I support most of what he’s proposing, and my concern sits almost entirely with the second idea.
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Why an operator-only lobby burns us
Ricci argues that FBOs, MROs, OEMs, and operators no longer share the same interests, so operators need a voice willing to push against other parts of the industry. The hosts pushed back that NBAA can’t easily play that messy middle, and Ricci answered that nobody needed a messy middle until a couple of years ago, when the FBOs created the need. His next step is asking the existing associations what they plan to do, and if he doesn’t like the answer, he says he’ll lead the coalition himself.
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In the first quarter of 2026, Delta reported $1.7 million in federal lobbying, United $1.27 million, American $1.16 million, and Airlines for America another $1.04 million. NBAA reported $380,000 for the same quarter and $420,000 for the next, which means Delta alone outspent our entire association more than four to one.
ALPA adds a second front. The pilots’ union spars with the carriers at the bargaining table, then lines up with them whenever charter or fractional flying starts to look like airline competition. We saw the playbook in the fight over JSX’s public charter model, where the argument was that it’s really an airline and should fly under Part 121. A coalition of big fractional and charter fleets operating apart from the rest of business aviation would hand them the easiest target they’ve ever had.
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“We’re all starting to hate you.”
Kenn Ricci, to the FBO chains
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Business aviation has always been outspent in Washington, and our wins have come from how many districts we touch. Our industry reaches thousands of airports and nearly every congressional district, so when NBAA stands alongside AOPA, NATA, GAMA and EAA, members of Congress hear from employers in their own backyards. That’s how we beat user fees in 2007, and it’s why FAA reauthorization passed without ATC privatization. An operator-only group trades that reach for a coalition that speaks mainly for a handful of large fleets.
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There’s a funding problem too. OEMs and FBO chains are among NBAA’s largest BACE exhibitors and sponsors, and an operator faction calling their fees criminal in public gives them every reason to spend elsewhere. That would weaken the association on everything else we count on it for, from tax policy to airport access.
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A better flight plan
I’d rather see Ricci’s grievances carried inside NBAA by an operator coalition chartered by the board, with its own seat at the table and its own published positions on the issues where operators and service providers genuinely disagree.
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Privacy belongs at the top of the list. It’s the issue Part 91 operators raise first, and it already shows what a united front can do. In a July 31 letter, AOPA, EAA, NBAA and Vertical Aviation International jointly asked the FAA to tighten limits on releasing owners’ personal information as it implements Section 803 of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024. Source data comes right behind it, since it rests on airworthiness requirements already on the books, and I can’t picture any member wanting to argue in public for withholding required documentation. Event fees would come next, pursued through the federal grant assurances that require airports taking AIP money to keep fees reasonable and not unjustly discriminatory, with Part 16 complaints as the enforcement path. That route gets Ricci most of what he’s after through a mechanism that holds up to scrutiny, and it protects the small Part 135 operator as much as it protects Flexjet. The coalition could also run a PMA and aftermarket clearinghouse so operators can share what’s working, which Ricci was already encouraging on the podcast.
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For this to be more than a gesture, the coalition needs a deadline for publishing its first positions, so it doesn’t drift into a working group that meets quarterly and produces nothing. It also needs voices beyond the big fleets, since the corporate flight departments and small charter operators at NBAA’s core carry the political weight that makes any of this matter. That structure gives Ricci a platform with real reach and keeps the airlines and ALPA from exploiting a split.
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Bring it to Las Vegas
NBAA-BACE runs October 20 to 22 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. If your operation has been hit with event fees or stonewalled on documentation, bring the specifics and put them in front of NBAA staff while you’re there. Ricci has put the issue on the table, and the operators who show up with real numbers will shape how this plays out.
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Full disclosure: I serve as Vice Chair of NBAA’s Business Aviation Management Committee. The views here are my own.
Source: The VIP Seat, interview with Kenn Ricci recorded at The Jet Business, London. Watch the episode
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