Journey
Business aviation insights, resources and stories

21 visits, 12 stops, 4 states, 3 days

Talk to a business owner who uses a company-owned aircraft and you’re likely to hear about a deal team members made or saved because they could reach a client in a single day or an incredible multi-stop trip that took just days instead of weeks.

Herman & Kittle Properties, Inc. of Indianapolis has a few of those stories, including a trip to evaluate a possible multi-million dollar portfolio acquisition. The 12-stop tour included 21 on-site visits over three days—a feat that time and schedules would have made impossible with a car, commercial airliner or train.

“The King Air® was like a time machine on this trip. We had a lot of short legs, with each about a 12- or 13-minute flight. The team would hop out, get in a rental car and drive about 10 or 15 minutes to the property. Then they’d come back, and we’d be off to the next location.” Joe Montagna, chief pilot

HKP develops, builds, manages and owns multi-family rental housing and self-storage facilities in ten states throughout the Midwest and Gulf regions of the United States. In one year, the company flew about 700 hours, mostly to transport team members to current and prospective properties.

In 2012, HKP upgraded from a King Air® 200 to a new King Air 350i. Soon after taking delivery in the winter, HKP took two teams of officers from Indiana to tour a portfolio in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. The properties were all within 60 to 80 miles of each other.

“There’s no way we could’ve effectively evaluated this property portfolio without private aviation,” said Jeffrey L. Kittle, president and CEO of HKP. One of the reasons business aviation offered more efficiency than commercial flights is the airlines’ hub-and-spoke system. There aren’t direct flights from many of these locations to the others.

“With the King Air, we left on a Monday, and I got home in time to have dinner with my family on Wednesday night.”