To be successful they realised they needed a business jet charter marketplace to drive demand. So they decided to launch that as well. One of their professors suggested they focus on the marketplace and park the air taxi idea. The Avinode charter marketplace launched in 2002.

CAMP Systems this week agreed to buy Avinode and two smaller FBO software businesses – FBO One and Total FBO –  for $200m. The professor was right.

It is a good deal for World Kinect (the energy company formally known as World Fuel) which acquired Avinode in 2014. World Kinect will use the cash to pay down debt and focus on its core fuelling business. It has clearly made a good return on its investment. World Kinect took control in 2019 just before its main business was hit with grounded airlines.

“We are excited about the possibilities the partnership between our companies will bring to our customers,” said Oliver King, chief executive officer, Avinode Group.

The acquisition also makes a lot of sense for CAMP Systems, the aircraft maintenance tracking business. CAMP Systems is itself owned by Hearst, a 136-year-old private company. Hearst is best known for publishing regional newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle (which it launched in 1887) and magazines like Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and Harper’s Bazaar. But along with newspapers, TV and magazines it has three significant business-to-business data divisions: Fitch Ratings, healthcare and transportation.

The transportation division includes data that helps mechanics fix trucks and cars. This includes MOTOR, a magazine that Hearst has owned for more than 120 years. MOTOR has evolved from a print consumer magazine into a data business for car repair, parts and insurance. Aviation is just as significant to Hearst.

Hearst acquired CAMP Systems in 2016 from private equity firm GTCR. (GTCR is now an investor in JSSI and has supported it buying two aircraft maintenance tracking companies that are rivals to CAMP.)

CAMP Systems then bought Inventory Locator Systems, the spares marketplace, from Boeing in 2019. In 2021 it bought a majority stake in FlightBridge, a workflow system that connects business jet operators with FBO, car handlers, hotels, airlines and catering companies.

When the deal closes in May, Avinode will fit into CAMP’s Marketplaces Group along with ILS, FlightBridge and Amstat – the aircraft listing marketplace.

“This represents a complementary extension of our business and platform to bring exciting new opportunities to the market and better serve our expanding customer base,” said Sean Lanagan, president and chief executive Officer, CAMP Systems.

World Kinetic did not run a formal sales process, instead it contacted companies that had already approached it in the past. The business could have fitted well with Directional Aviation’s spin-off Tuvoli (which has FlyEasy, a rival marketplace and a payment system competitor). It might also have been of interest to Portside, the flight department software company which raised $50m in private equity from investor Insight Partners (and recently acquired the rights to Wheels Up’s AVIANIS software). The founders of Wheels Up had also tried to buy Avinode several times.

King and the senior management team have no plans to leave. This includes Per Marthinsson, one of the three founders, who is Avinode’s chief revenue office.

The other two founders are backing a European car charging start-up. It was branded before they joined, but is genuinely called ChargeNode.

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His solution was to buy a small tracking company that became SierraTrax. That was in 2017, Just four years later SierraTrax has more than 1,000 customers and has been sold to Jet Support Services, Inc. (JSSI).

Talley is a difficult man to categorise. As well as the aircraft maintenance tracking company, he is also the founder of a cloud computing company, the chairman and CEO of a Southern California burger chain and a serial aviation entrepreneur and a keen pilot. He also founded JetFuelX, a fuel analytics company that he sold to ForeFlight 2015.

These renaissance interests fit in well with JSSI which is a much harder company to categorise than it was a few years ago. Best known for its independent hourly cost maintenance programmes it now also has JSSI Parts & Leasing, JSSI Advisory Services; and Conklin & de Decker.

“We have been looking at the maintenance tracking space for several years. When we launched tip-to-tail maintenance programmes it was all about simplifying ownership experience and this is exactly what SierraTrax does as well,” says Neil Book, chairman and CEO of JSSI. “It fits in with our overall strategy of simplifying customer experiences and making the process more efficient. We looked at all the different companies and launching our own, but the simplicity of the SierraTrax product and its fast growth made it the one we wanted.”

This is Book’s fourth acquisition in four years but the first since private equity firm GTCR became an investor in November 2020. GTCR has a unique understanding of maintenance tracking after buying CAMP Systems, the market leader with more than 15,000 aircraft, in 2012. In 2016 it sold CAMP for a significant profit to Hearst Corporation, the media company.

SierraTrax has a strong customer base with Textron owners and hopes to grow this with other types. JSSI has enrolled more than 10% of the world’s business jets on its Hourly Cost Maintenance Programs and oversees more than 10,000 maintenance events per year.

SierraTrax offers a simple scanning service for owners looking to move paper records onto its system. It has various scanning sites across the US where owners can leave paper documents and have fully digital records within two weeks.

“Once they are digital, owners can make limited access of these available to buyers or brokers to speed up transactions,” says Talley.

Talley plans to stay at JSSI after the sale. “We are very excited to have Jason and his very strong team joining us,” says Book “We are also encouraging him and all our team to find other industry problems that we can solve together.”

• – JSSI continues diversification from maintenance programmes with aircraft maintenance tracking company acquisition
•  – SierraTrax fourth largest aircraft maintenance tracking company and fast growing
• – JSSI shareholder GTCR is former owner of CAMP Systems.

Above: Jason Talley is a serial aviation entrepreneur.

Below: Neil Book is chairman and CEO of JSSI.

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