Flight Options Founder Ricci Returns to Company

By Matt Thurber

April 22, 2008
Charter and Fractional

Two new investors have invested in HIG Transport Holdings, the holding company that owns Cleveland-based fractional-share provider Flight Options. Resilience Capital Partners, based in Cleveland, and Directional Aviation Capital of nearby Richmond Heights now own a minority stake in HIG Transport Holdings.

Both Kenn Ricci, principal for Directional Aviation, and Steve Rosen, cofounder of Resilience Capital Partners, will join the HIG Transport Holdings board of directors. Ricci was one of the founders of Flight Options in 1998.

He left the company in February 2003 as Flight Options was in the process of being taken over by Raytheon, which had earlier sold the Raytheon Travel Air fractional company to Flight Options. Raytheon sold Flight Options to HIG Capital this past November.

Directional Aviation projects include aircraft modification firm Nextant Aerospace, Corporate Wings and Air Services. Resilience Capital Partners’ “investment philosophy is focused on principal investing in lower middle market underperforming and turnaround situations.

A fractional industry insider recently told AIN that Flight Options has not sold any shares so far this year, but a Flight Options spokeswoman denied this claim.

Back

Sentient changes leaders amid funding ‘hiccup’ August 01, 2008 Cash-flow problems at Sentient Jet Holdings, parent of charter, management and jet card firm Sentient Flight Group, have led to a leadership... [more]
Illegal charter hotline funded by FAA August 01, 2008 The FAA has provided grant money to fund a hotline for charter operators to report “suspected illegal commercial activity,” according to the... [more]
Linear Air Launches NYC Service August 01, 2008 Air-taxi firm Linear Air in late June launched Eclipse 500 service in the greater New York City area. Linear Air’s aircraft is based at... [more]
DayJet Expands DayPorts and DayStops August 01, 2008 Per-seat, on-demand charter operator DayJet has added two primary “DayPort” and 14 secondary “DayStop” destinations to its network. DayJet now... [more]
DayJet, FAA to prove NextGen technologies July 01, 2008 Very light jet air-taxi operator DayJet on June 10 signed an agreement with the FAA to start a five-year, phased implementation of proven... [more]