By Timothy Gibbons – editor in chief, Jacksonville Business Journal

Jacksonville Business Journal Editor Timothy Gibbons recently spoke with Malone AirCharter CEO Cristine Kirk for a segment of the Florida Business Minds podcast.

Sponsored by TECO Peoples Gas, the audio series features candid conversations with top business leaders from the Orlando, South Florida, Tampa Bay and Jacksonville regions.

Kirk took over ownership of the 20-year-old air charter company in 2021, taking one of Jacksonville’s fastest-growing companies to new heights. As well as charter services, Malone offers a range of services, including aircraft management and helping with the purchase or sale of planes.

n our conversation, we talk about how Kirk managed the company through the pandemic and its aftermath, where private aviation is going now and the lessons she’s learned as she worked her way through the ranks to ownership.

The following is a brief excerpt from the conversation, edited for length and clarity.

You were CFO of Malone in the early days of the pandemic and then bought the company in the midst of it. What was it like leading the company when everything shut down, and then afterwards, when business just exploded?

The industry has never seen anything like it. We were down for six weeks, which was very scary. … Fortunately, the Malones were very, very, very good with the way they set everything up. We are a relatively debt-free company — and so when the pandemic came in, we were able to keep that.

We really did benefit from people deciding that they wanted something a little less germ-y. Private aircraft has less germs and less opportunities to get sick. Every day was filled, every plane was filled. We said ‘no’ more often than we said ‘yes’ because there was just no room.

You moved from JaxEX at Craig airport — the Jacksonville executive airport — to Jacksonville International Airport, a sign of the kind of growth private aviation is seeing in the area. Where do things stand in the area?

Jacksonville is experience some unprecedented growth. You do have people that are here that need to go to Washington for a meeting, they’ll go to the mountains for a meeting. And then you’ve got the executives here that like to travel for their vacations to the Bahamas or Colorado for skiing. The more that we get those type of executives here in Jacksonville, which it seems like it’s increasing, the busier we get in private business aviation.

Looking more broadly, where do you see 2024 going for private aviation?

We’re going to continue to see some continued leveling out. Something super interesting that happened during the pandemic were, the folks that flew charter, a lot of them went the next level up: They said, ‘OK, well, I can afford to fly charter, but all these charter companies are busy and I’m not getting the flights I want, so I’m going to buy an airplane.’

And so you have a major increase of private airplane owners. My guess is that within the next couple of years, when the need isn’t as high to have your own aircraft, and the cost of owning an aircraft is kind of high, that may change.

Click here to listen to the article: https://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2024/03/19/florida-business-minds-cristine-kirk.html