Page 10 - Volume 12, Number 7

The Joyce family has embraced private aviation for close to seven decades. They purchased this 2002 King Air 200 three years ago to stay in touch with customers and visit job sites for Otis Eastern Service, a pipeline construction business run by the third generation of the pipeliner family.
“It’s a phenomenal value for that price,” said Terrasi, who has purchased a portable Airtext unit that he moves among airplanes in his Luftladder charter operation. “It gets used all the time. A deal can be salvaged with a text and you won’t miss it because you were on the plane for two hours.”
Joyce said he’s already re- couped the cost of adding Airtext by submitting bids from the air to meet a deadline, finding out midflight that the team needed to add a stop at another job site, redirecting the plane to assist in an emergency situation or
According to airtext.aero, hardware costs begin staying in touch with sites that aren’t being visited in
at $9,750. There is also the cost of an avionics shop installing it, then an annual data plan of $300 per year for Iridium and Airtext network connection. That includes the first 1,000 text messages; additional messages are five cents each.
Spending 300-400 hours each year in the King Air 200 makes in-flight communication as vital as what happens once employees land, so Otis Eastern Service enthusiastically became the first King Air operator to install Airtext hardware.
person that day.
“We’re able to talk in real time to all the projects while we’re on our way to one project site,” Joyce said. “Not only can we reach out, they can reach us while we
8 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
JULY 2018