The Corporate Jet Investor Podcast

Luis Barros, founder and CEO of Leviate Air Group, joins Alasdair Whyte to talk about his path from a first aviation program at 16 to building a Dallas-based business that covers charter, aircraft sales and operations. He explains how he bought the company he once worked for and why he went to Columbia Business School to study private equity. Barros explains how he plans to double Leviate organically, but acquisitions could make it five times larger. They also cover private equity’s role in aviation, the fight over special event fees, the need for tougher penalties on illegal charter, and Leviate’s first airliner project: a  Boeing 767. Luis closes with advice for anyone entering business aviation, buying their first aircraft or going out on their own.

This week on the Corporate Jet Investor podcast, Mark Bearden, Senior Vice President at First American Equipment Finance, explains why fractional ownership is so popular and why his banks likes financing it.
Mark discusses why City National lends against the borrower rather than the aircraft, and how that approach fits well with used fractional shares. He covers what drove the post-2020 boom, who is buying fractional today, and when it beats charter, jet cards or whole-aircraft ownership.
He also gets into how bonus depreciation has boosted demand, typical loan terms and closing times, and the long manufacturer backlogs. He finishes with where the fractional market goes next.

Southern Cross Aircraft is one of the most active large business jet dealers in the world. In this CJI Podcast Pat Hosmann Jr. explains how they look for aircraft with “good bones” and the risks involved in inventory (especially when three brothers are making investment decisions).
 The company specialises in complex international deals and Hosmann explains how to deal with different cultures. He also says how tight-knit the community is: “In business aviation there is probably three degrees of separation, it’s all about personal relationships.”

Denise Wilson has done nearly everything in business aviation: commercial pilot, aircraft manager, operator for 14 years, and now founder and president of The Jet Agent, a brokerage built on real advisory relationships instead of the usual sales hustle.
In this episode, Denise talks about why she specialises in specific aircraft rather than a region, how she helps first time buyers cut through all the noise, and what's actually going on right now in the Citation M2 and CJ4 markets. She gets into off market deals, why she's not worried about AI replacing brokers, and the mistakes that quietly cost new jet owners down the line.

John Odegard, founder of 5x5 Trading and Chairman of IADA, has spent 30+ years closing deals in private aviation, from NetJets to Wheels Up to building his own firm from scratch. He talks career pivots, the leap of faith it took to launch a new business in the middle of a global shutdown, what it really takes to move aircraft at scale, and the highs of competition and celebration in dealmaking, right down to the horn that goes off every time his team closes a deal. Plus: why he still says the brokerage world can feel like the Wild West.