Alante Air Charter, which commenced Part 135 operations out of Scottsdale, Arizona in November 2004, has grown its revenue and fleet 100 per cent year over year for the last six years. “2020 was very interesting,” comments company president Ryan Hamilton. “Like everybody, January, February and March were relatively good for us. April and May fell effectively to zero revenue. In the second half of May we picked up quite a bit of flying, and then June through the end of January this year, we’ve seen consistent increases. We probably reached pre-COVID levels by the end of July or beginning of August and continued upward from there. We were following the Part 135 trend in that respect.”

Alante added four aircraft to its certificate last year and purchased an operating hangar and office facility at Scottsdale airport. “It was a big year in terms of expansion for us, and the demand for charter is increasing. It remains to be seen how long this growth will go on for,” Hamilton continues.

The company floats seven of its aircraft and the charter department does its best to ‘piece flights together’, working with other operators and brokers as well as performing flights for Wheels Up and Sentient Jet. It has nine CJ3s, a CJ4, an M2 and a Challenger 850. Hamilton says the CJ3 is by far the most popular aircraft: “It has a good combination of range, size and capacity, it carries six passengers and will fly 1,500 nm all day long. Pilots like it, it’s a well-performing aircraft with good avionics, and it’s a fairly easy platform to operate.

“We’re already in the process of finding more aircraft to purchase. We’ve got another one that we’re adding that we’re just starting to do the due diligence on, and we’re actively looking for three or four more CJ3s to add by the end of the year.”

Alante flies to Canada and Mexico frequently; Canada is a lot more restricted than Mexico is at the moment. In December and January it performed multiple trips to Mexico, but Mexico flights have slowed down since the US announced that people had to have negative COVID tests to travel to and from anywhere international. “We’ve seen a decline in the international flights, but I think as people get more familiar with the programme, the situation will improve and people will start travelling more internationally. It’s a learning curve right now.

“We have a Challenger 850 on the heavy side, and most of its flying is effectively the same domestic trips that we’re doing in the CJ3, but with 10-12 people. The aircraft has a 3,200 nm range, but we are utilising the lifting capacity rather than the range capacity, taking 10 people regionally instead of four for example. But for the guys flying exclusively the heavy stuff internationally, I would guess that market has fallen right out from beneath them,” he concludes.