There wasn't much that could keep Sarah Oberman from opening her own business — a business she loves.
Oberman was born into an aviation family. She grew up flying in small planes and has spent a career working in aviation. She ran a flight school, was chief marketer for a company that operated jets, and worked for her family's fixed base operation. FBOs offer services like fueling, hangaring and airplane maintenance.
Now she's in business for herself as a charter broker with her company TruNorth Jets.
Oberman is the middleman between people who want to fly private and operators who do the flying and own the planes. Oberman finds customers and then charters a plane that meets their needs.
The planes have to be the right size for the journey, whether the customers are a basketball team who may want a taller cabin size and larger plane, or a family who want the most economical chartered flight possible. She considers planes' capabilities — how old is the aircraft? If her client is headed to a remote mountainous area, is the plane short enough to land at a small airport in the mountains, which typically have shorter runways? If they're flying coast to coast, can the airplane travel that far without stopping?
"This time of year in Albuquerque and Santa Fe for example, it's really important to know the performance of the airplane during takeoff because it's so hot," Oberman said.
She relays any client needs to the operator and makes sure the trip is booked and paid for, then she tracks her clients' flights.
Oberman opened TruNorth Jets a year ago, and she is expanding the footprint of her work in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Although Oberman lives in southern California, she already has New Mexico clients, and she plans to charter more flights out of the Santa Fe Municipal Airport and Albuquerque International Sunport.
"You have big airline carriers that are based here in Albuquerque. Santa Fe, it's much more limited," she said. "Usually, you have to have a connection. So, if you want to go to Palm Beach, Florida for example out of Santa Fe, it's going to probably take two connections, so the demand for private travel is there."
Fuel prices, which have been high for the last two years, are finally beginning to come down, Oberman said.
"Pricing since COVID has been at an all time high, because everybody realized that an airplane is a sanitary capsule. It's not flying with the masses in a 737," she said.
According to Oberman, popular destinations for private flights are New York, Palm Beach, Florida and in wintertime, Aspen, Colorado.
"I would say that about 70% of my clientele travel for business and so they're able to accomplish more by flying private than they do if they're flying the airlines," Oberman said. "I have one client who they're looking at properties over different state lines, and they made multiple stops, and it was over a three-day period. If they had done that on the airlines, combined with a rental car, it probably would have taken them a week or more, because they were remote locations. It's just a really efficient business tool."
When it comes to her own plane preferences, the faster, the bigger, the better.
"I might say one of my favorite types would be a Citation Latitude, which is a super midsize aircraft, or the Longitude, which is the bigger one of that same family. I also love the Challenger 350 or 300. Those are all in the super midsize category, so they'll go coast to coast non-stop. But getting into something bigger like a Gulfstream is always great too, because then you can go pretty much anywhere nonstop."
Her advice for other entrepreneurs with a burning passion to open their own business is just do it.
"Don't wait. Give it a go. It's the best thing I've ever done," Oberman said.
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