Should consumers care whether a company providing them goods and services is a stable corporation? Well, to some extent, it does depend on the product or service being offered. If we’re talking about tin foil or jeans or pens and pencils, corporate stability hardly matters. But for products and services that affect our health and safety, we want to know the provider is a well-run organization.
Food and medications would be included here, and also companies that own and operate private jets. Why? Because when you’re sitting in a seat thousands of feet in the air, how safe you are is in direct proportion to the corporate stability of the company that owns and operates the airplane.
Before exploring that last point further, let’s define what exactly is meant by “corporate stability.”
Our current economy seems to be breaking many accepted rules of economics. For example, raising interest rates tamps down inflation. Not so much this time. Also, strong employment numbers usually produce a satisfied workforce. Then why are many employees resorting to “quiet quitting.” So, in this economy of contradictions, how does one define “corporate stability?”
To answer that question, NJ Correnti, founder and CEO of Nicholas Air, offers what he calls “a simple analogy.” Correnti compares the pre-pandemic economy to a sunny day, but one with storm clouds on the horizon. A stable company, he says, “analyzes the weather,” and puts in place a proper plan, so it has the appropriate response, “no matter how big or small the storm is.”
Correnti includes Nicholas Air among those very few that are prepared for the storm, and says of private aviation in general, “to be really stable in this business requires the art of omniscience. You really need the ability to see well beyond the obvious when combatting a challenge and it’s something that the best companies are able to do really well.”
So, for private jet fliers anxious to know whether a provider is, in fact, doing that “really well,” what questions should a traveler be asking? Correnti offers several, including, “has the company continually changed hands? Did the company completely halt its business or make a kneejerk reaction during COVID? Does the company drastically change their offerings to stay afloat? Are they constantly creating baseless major headlines just to foster buzz?”
All of those factors “create distractions inside an organization which take away from the end users’ experience,” as Correnti puts it. In contrast, Correnti says corporate stability “inherently leads to a safer program.” How? Correnti points to his company’s most important asset: its employees.
Stability in a company like Correnti’s means job security at every level, including for pilots, who are kept flying which leads to more operational experience. For Correnti’s operations team, it means they work closely together for better efficiency throughout the company’s fleet. And for “back office staff,” Correnti says, “reduced turnover means each person becomes more skilled at their craft.” Not to mention, the kind of financial that Nicholas Air offers enables a company to recruit and retain top talent. As Correnti puts it:
“When I look around our management table, I see a team of not just hired hands with some flashy degree, I see aviators with a passion for the art. It is a difficult skillset to find, but we’ve done it here.”
Twenty-five years ago, Correnti started Nicholas Air with one airplane that had exactly four seats. That early iteration truly was what Correnti calls a “high touch service culture,” and it is a culture to which Nicholas Air has remained committed, and one that, according to Correnti, “brings private jet travelers back to us year after year.”
