Page 9 - May24

franchisee who has actually flown all over the country and I’ve seen nearly every FBO from the perspective of a pilot,” he recalled telling her. “We’re leaving because if you have a bad experience in one city, it takes away from the others. I gotta tell you, you’ve got some really good ones but you’ve also got some really bad ones. I’m gonna go do my own thing.”
He said her reply to him was: “Well, why don’t you buy it and fix it?”
Thirty days later, Roger owned the Million Air brand. His three King Air aircraft soon went from purely charter operations to being flown around the country to move Million Air from a rent-a-sign type of operation to a true brand with operational standards and a consistent culture.
MAY 2024
“I started flying to all the Million Airs to check on them, train them, upgrade them,” Roger said. “It took about five years to turn it into a real brand. We traveled a lot in those days so my kids, Allison and Chase, were always around aviation while they were growing up, including riding in the back of the King Airs.”
There were 25 locations in 2001, including the single company-owned facility at KADS, and today there are 36 Million Air locations (including 13 company-owned) throughout the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean. Million Air is still the only franchise FBO network and is the only FBO network that is privately held and family operated by pilots.
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 7