Today we’d like to introduce you to Kevin Singh.
Kevin, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My Father was a pilot. His stories about flying and visiting far-flung places intrigued everyone around him. He commanded respect and admiration from everyone around him. That’s it; that was my start into aviation. Then, around 2006, I flew as a captain of a business jet and went around the world, eventually ending up taking a position in the Middle East and Asia. The travels became frequent, and along with the travel came the roadblocks placed around business aviation. Flying from continent to continent was difficult in the years when the Internet was rapidly becoming the method of communication; however, some parts of the world were still far behind in transacting finances and the application of permits, labor, and visas for free movement. As a Captain of a business jet, I took care of most of the transactions when we flew into Africa, South Asia, South America, and Russia and China. The difficulties I faced in traversing these countries and continents gave me an end-user perspective and opened my eyes to unfair practices that wasted time and money. In 2011, I started Icarus Jet as a way to innovate communication and invoicing around business jet transactions throughout the Globe. Today, Icarus Jet is at the forefront of technology and innovation, using humans and automation. The old-world problems no longer exist, but new issues have sprung up around shrinking skies and the extraordinary aviation Industry.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
God, I hope not. Smooth sailing has never made a good sailor. Sales and Marketing are the biggest struggles because they have both moved on from their status quo. There are no more keywords, paid advertising, or print media. Now a fictional coffee shop on social media sells more coffee and makes more money than most real coffee shops. Professionals like dentists and Surgeons are all singing and dancing on TikTok and IG to get more clients. There are private jet charter brokers who have never owned a tangible asset, who started solely with frivolous claims about private aviation, and have sold more jet charters than those of us with offices, staff members, and millions of USD invested into our business and structures around credibility and safety. Yet, these companies on social media are now raking in hundreds of millions of USD in revenue because their relevance on social media gets them more business than anything that we can do. One of these jet charter companies was started on TikTok, and a few months ago they received a hundred million USD investment from a PE firm. I guess I need to start singing and dancing on social media as well before we lose it all to the comedians.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We are a Business Aviation company based out of Dallas,Texas, London, UK, Dubai,UAE, and Nairobi, Kenya. We promise three things to private aviation clients.
1- We will never compromise your safety, and we will never comprimise your privacy.
2-We will communicate clearly, timely.
3-All pricing and Invoicing will be fair from the start till the end.
We specialize in creating solutions for private jet World-wide travel without hassle. We also manage the business aviation asset and borker private jet charters. But what we actually do is find the best ways to keep you safe at all times and guard your privacy while utilizing business aircraft. One of the biggest complaints in business aviation are unfair pricing and invoicing practices which leaves most clients with a bad taste. We also use our platform to educate our clients as there are misnomers about the business aviation Industry and some are just hard to get facts that we talk about in our social media and blogs and newsletters. We were established in 2011 and fifteen years late we have had no incidents or accidents which has prompter us to practice even more safety standards with Innovations, training, and data analysis. This has to be our proudest accomplishment thus far, keeping our clients safe and healthy and happy.
Our main purpose is to educate people on private aviation and business aviation and we want people to know that we are a company invested into education, training and providing a crescendo in every service, aircraft management, jet charter or trip-support services. We are not here to sell, rather we are here to invest into our colleagues health, happiness and safety and privace of our clients.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
In 2015, I had set up a small standee at a business aviation conference in Las Vegas (NBAA). Captain Michael Jessup walked past my standee and spoke to me for about thirty minutes. After the conference, he called me and handed me the trip support services for the entire fleet belonging to the Related group of companies. Captain Jessup gave me an opportunity, knowing fully well that we were just a small company with one small office and three people. Eleven years later, we still handle all his services around the Globe, and if it wasn’t for him giving me that chance, Icarus Jet would not exist. I look back at Captain Jessup giving us the break we needed, and because of his belief in us, today we have offices on four continents.
My other biggest credit goes to my employee #1. I met Kamran over the chat room of an aviation forum and hired him after an interview (this was 2010). Kamran worked to create one of the best Trip support teams in the world, admired by pilots at Fortune 500 companies and by some of the most affluent families in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Kamran still heads my trip-support team after fifteen years, and he lives in Dubai.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.icarusjet.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/icarusjetcharter
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jetmanagement
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/icarus-amc-inc/
- Youtube: @icarusjet7652
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/icarus-jet-dallas
