Post by Gregg Brunson-Pitts

Eleven years ago, I started Advanced Aviation Team from my kitchen counter. No fancy marketing. No office. No employees. My newborn son, a laptop, and a belief that there was a better way to serve clients in private aviation. Before starting AAT, Peter Newell and I spent years coordinating complex travel operations in and around the White House for two presidents. Those experiences taught us something that still guides our company today: People think aviation is about airplanes. It’s not. It’s about trust. It’s about knowing that when a client absolutely has to be somewhere, there can’t be surprises. The aircraft matters. The crew matters. The logistics matter. But what matters most is having an advocate who is already thinking three steps ahead. When I launched AAT in 2015, I didn’t have a grand business plan. I started calling people I thought might need airplanes. One client became two. Two became a few. And relationships transcend today. Growth is exciting. Scale is attractive. Bigger is often celebrated. But bigger isn’t always better. Today, many companies focus on volume, we’ve chosen a different path. We want to be known for being trusted, responsive, and relentlessly focused on the client experience. That’s harder to scale. But the harder path is worth it. And, it’s the company I always wanted to build. The lesson? The most valuable thing you build isn’t the business. It’s the trust that allows the business to exist. Washington Business Journal Nate Doughty recently shared part of our story. If you’d like to read it, I’ve included the link below. #Entrepreneurship #Leadership #FounderStory #PrivateAviation #BusinessGrowth https://lnkd.in/evn84mNX