Plans To Expand Fractional Ownership Program With More Jets

Flight Options LLC -- a service and maintenance operation doing business in Sacramento, CA and four other cities -- has been bought by H.I.G. Capital LLC, according to the Sacramento Business Journal. No details of the deal were forthcoming.

Flight Options was a subsidiary of defense contractor Raytheon, which agreed to sell the nine-year old Cleveland-based company. Operating a fleet of 130 luxury aircraft, Flight Options provides services to business and wealthy clients.

As ANN reported, the company recently ordered 100 Phenom 300 light jets over, with options on 50 more. The company will take delivery of those planes over 10 year, with the first Phenom 100 scheduled to arrive in 2009.

Flight Options employs 25 people in Sacramento. The company also has a Las Vegas, NV service and maintenance facility; the Sacramento operation supports the company's maintenance efforts on the West Coast.

Flight Options "continues to run itself," there are no plans for management or other employee changes, said H.I.G. spokesman Bret Wiener.

"Our plans for the future are the same as they were before the acquisition," said Cindi Deutschman-Ruiz, public relations manager for Flight Options.

The company operates by using a fractional ownership program that guarantees owner/customers access to aircraft.

Flight Options is the second-largest fractional operator behind NetJets, Deutschman-Ruiz said. The company also offers aircraft management services for aircraft owners.

Deutschman-Ruiz admitted that the fractional business has been "fairly flat for the past couple of years." However, she said Flight Options is not getting out of the fractional market because there's still demand for it.

Interest in it, and membership, has been "exploding," she said.

FMI: www.flightoptions.com/, www.higcapital.com/