Aircraft Matchmaking Service: A 90-Day Engagement
First Published by Jeremy Kariuki on Aviation Week Network
The financial investment required for aircraft ownership can be overwhelming for aviators of any pay grade. However, Partners In Aviation’s
(PIA) Mark Molloy suggests a structured path to make co-ownership easier for both parties.
Molloy founded PIA in 2016 but got his start in aircraft sales shortly after graduating from college with a business finance degree, He eventually
became a regional sales director for Beechcraft. After 35 years in sales, Molloy noticed a trend in his customers’ feedback.
“Over those years, when I was selling new airplanes for Beechcraft, many of our customers would say ‘if I had a partner, it would make more
sense for me.’ And we would try to discourage them from partnerships because at least from my perspective, partnerships are always good
math but bad everything else,” Molloy explains.
Molloy believes a recent shift toward co-ownership has been driven by struggling jet card and charter companies, where aircraft quality and
reliability have suffered.
“We’ve had several [charter programs] go out of business here recently,” he said. “I think it’s been the struggles of the membership and jet card
providers that have turned a lot of those clients toward co-ownership. That’s where our growth has been.”
PIA’s nine years of business has seen an average year-over-year increase of 25%, according to the company.
Molloy notes the private aviation landscape has lacked a standardized structure for aircraft co-ownership, resulting in commonly negative
outcomes.
“Guys would meet each other at the club, and they would cobble something together and those ended poorly,” he says. “There was no good,
structured program and if you didn’t know somebody at the club, how are you going to find somebody?”
That question led Molloy to retire and start PIA, aiming to serve aircraft owners and non-owners who may not fly often enough to warrant sole
ownership, or fly too often to justify charter or jet card memberships. Molloy describes PIA’s quintessential customer as one who flies 50-150
hr. annually.
Not unlike some dating services, PIA matches customers with complimentary needs, schedules and budgets to form partnerships with high
likelihoods of success. After the match is made, the 90-day process begins with the PIA Co-Owner Candidate Introductory Meeting—otherwise
referred to as “just lunch.”
“This is a get-your-hands-dirty ownership program,” Molloy says. “We’re going to be the group that puts this together and brings you together
and walks you down the aisle in holy matrimony together through this whole birthing process. So that’s why it’s not just a plug-and-play. You
have to decide this is the right program, and then you have to go through the dating process, and it’s about a 90-day ordeal.”
According to Molloy, PIA offers monumental cost savings for semi-frequent fliers in comparison to charter memberships or complete aircraft
ownership, due to the financial burden being split between two customers. Under the legal framework that PIA provides, one owner’s inability
to maintain the financial obligation will not come at the expense of the co-owner.
“They both have really significant equity, so protection from the other guy, if the other guy has a bad day, the co-owner in good standing has a
home run, because he walks into really good equity, so there’s no risk,” Molloy explains. “And if Partners In Aviation goes away, they don’t lose
anything, because after we do the match, there’s a manager they can always change.”