Florida-headquartered charter, aircraft management, maintenance and sales and acquisitions company Hera Flight has recently added a number of aircraft to its fleet; a Gulfstream V, some Learjet 60s and a Gulfstream IV. The company also has Citations and Challengers and offers a jet card programme.
Due to the popularity of its existing GIV, that arrived in August 2021, Hera Flight was looking to add another to its fleet. “The aircraft arrived at the end of 2022 and we are working on adding it to our fleet for customers to charter this quarter,” says owner and chief pilot Jonathan Hollar. “Hera Flight looks forward to 2023 with increasing demand and happy customers. We can’t wait to see the growth of the company over the next couple of years.”
Overall eight Learjet 60s were added in 2022 and the company expects many more to come this year.
2022 was its busiest year and revenues doubled from 2021. “We are expecting to close to double in size once again in 2023,” adds Hollar. “We are in the process of obtaining FAA qualifications for long range navigation to Europe and the Orient.”
Co-owner Chuck White calls Clearwater home, and when hanger space became available at St Pete–Clearwater International airport, the Hera team knew it was a great South Florida location and decided to base its headquarters there. It acquired the hangars in 2020 and added two more last year. More than 40 of its 90-strong staff work in the 7,200 sq ft of office space, the rest occupy the 58,000 sq ft of hangar space that holds 18 large aircraft, essential for its ever-growing fleet.
Hollar has a varied aviation background that began at the age of 16 while still at high school. He started flying in single pilot cargo operations then moved onto flying with a crew and passengers with fractional corporate airlines. After working for several companies he says he came to see the same flaws with each of them, so he set out to create what he calls a ‘new age’ way of aircraft operations which led to Hera Flight. He holds an airline transport jet pilot’s licence with type ratings in King Air, Piaggio, Learjet, Learjet 60, Citation X, Gulfstream III, IV and Gulfstream 550 aircraft and has logged more than 13,000 flight hours as a captain. He is also a commercial helicopter and sea plane captain.