A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Business Aviation Services Editor

Curt Epstein

Winnipeg might not be the first guess for the genesis of commercial aviation in Canada, but in 1920 the Manitoba city hosted the first passenger flight from what would eventually become Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport (CYWG). Today, the field is home to Fast Air, one of three FBOs and one of the country’s largest aviation services providers.
The company—which began at CYWG in 1995 as an aircraft charter and management provider—purchased the existing Esso Avitat FBO in 2015 to provide better vertical integration with its fleet operations. It now is the dominant FBO on the field, claiming more than 60 percent of the general aviation business there, according to Dan Rutherford, Fast Air’s manager of business development.
Fast Air also operates a Transport Canada-approved aircraft maintenance organization, equivalent to an FAA Part 145 under the bilateral agreement.
The location’s 10,000-sq-ft terminal offers an airy lobby with a 20-foot-high ceiling. Filled with natural light from the all-glass runway side wall, it is furnished with live-edge wood tables and custom-made leather-clad sofas. &nbsp;Open 24/7, it features a 15-seat conference room, an aircrew lounge (named thusly to ensure visiting medevac crew members will also utilize it) with an adjoining snooze room, showers, a refreshment bar stocked with freshly baked cookies delivered from a local bistro, business center, onsite car rental, and van shuttle that will take passengers and crew anywhere they need to go.
In addition to the adjoining 25,000-sq-ft hangar, the facility offers an additional 100,000 sq ft of heated aircraft storage space capable of sheltering up to a Bombardier Global 7500. A new 30,000-sq-ft hangar is under construction with a scheduled completion by the end of the year. The FBO also has nearly six acres of ramp, with Canadian customs service available 24/7 planeside with prior notification.
While the FBO’s quartet of 5,282-gallon (20,000-liter) jet-A tankers, like all on the field, draw from the airport’s fuel farm, Fast Air has CYWG’s only supply of avgas with a 20,000-gallon tank and a 1,300-gallon 100LL truck. A member of the World Fuel Services-sponsored Air Elite FBO network, the facility’s line staff is trained to IATA standards as well as World’s in-house training program.
The company is known for its quick turn prowess. “We have a number of national aviation companies that choose to stop here for fuel because they know how quick our teams are,” Rutherford told AIN. “We can have a business jet turned around in under 20 minutes.”
Winnipeg—which is home to a Boeing factory and one of North America’s largest bus manufacturers—boasts a large industrial sector that draws business traffic year-round. But the end of May through August is peak season, said Rutherford. “We certainly see a big bump in the summertime when a lot of Americans fly into our FBO and then head north to high-end fishing lodges.” That extends through the fall when visitors arrive for wildlife viewing excursions including polar bears and beluga whales.
Fast Air also tends to the jets of the Jets, Winnipeg’s hometown NHL team. The facility handles not only all of the Jets' flights but those of all visiting Canadian teams and many of the American teams as well. As a result, during the season, there are Boeing or Airbus aircraft on the ramp on many days.
From large sports charters to the smallest single-engine piston, the company trains its staff to treat all arriving aircraft with the same courtesy and professionalism, and Rutherford draws a distinction between customers and a client. “A customer is a transaction, and they will go wherever the fuel is the cheapest; but with a client, there is trust, there is dedication, there’s commitment, and they want to come back year after year because they feel like they are coming back to somewhere special," he said. "It doesn’t matter the size of the aircraft or the amount of fuel they are buying, we want them to be clients.”
Sustainability is a major focus for Fast Air, which was the first Canadian operator to be designated as a sustainable aviation services provider by NATA. Since 2019 it has worked to steadily reduce its carbon emissions and is in the process of replacing all of its ground service equipment with electrically powered units.
The company recently began construction at Vancouver-area Abbotsford International Airport (CYXX) on what will eventually become its second location. Slated for completion by the end of the year, it will initially serve as a Western charter base for the company’s fleet, but plans call for maintenance and transient aircraft fueling to be added as well.

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