Fly Alliance: Parts known

Fly Alliance provides 24/7 AOG support and holds an extensive parts inventory.

A Gulfstream G450 sits dormant in the hangar, unusable until a replacement brake is sourced and fitted. Back in 2019, the aircraft would likely have been out of action for a week at most. In 2026, it could be a month at best. Some just hope for a replacement this quarter. 

The vast majority of operators have been forced to suck it up. OEM waiting lists have grown and compounded with delays to make the parts themselves, often leaving aircraft high and dry for weeks at a time. Meanwhile, the second-hand parts market is on fire. Sourcing certain components has become nearly impossible. Unless you buy the entire airframe. 

Luckily for Kevin Wargo he has been disassembling aircraft and selling parts since 2011. 

Wargo jumped into aviation because of a love for entrepreneurship, not for things that fly (although that came later). After six years in banking and pharmaceuticals at Citicorp and then AstraZeneca, Wargo was offered a role at a small, fast-growing aircraft parts business in the slump years following the 2008 financial crash. 

“After I started selling aircraft parts, I saw it grow every single month from then on,” he told CJI. For the first decade or so, Wargo averaged between 12 and 18 disassemblies every year – some years even greater. 

Wargo once bought three aircraft on one day, his birthday (which is a few weeks before Christmas).

In 2019, he founded Fly Alliance, a vertically integrated aviation solutions provider that combines aircraft parts, maintenance, charter operations and a jet card product. 

“We find that we’re pretty unique because we have a lot of competitors in each of the individual silos, but not many actually compete on all levels,” he explained. “It gives us some nice competitive advantages. If we unfortunately need a very expensive part, we likely have the part in stock. If we need a part tomorrow to get a plane up for a very critical trip, we obviously have the inventory in our building. 

“This allows us to be very flexible with our customers in terms of payments, and also dynamic with solving problems.”

Pandemic-propelled parts prices

This approach has proved invaluable to the company in the wake of Covid-induced market shifts that have seen aircraft values and parts climb to unprecedented prices. 

“Everybody has had that experience,” he said. “But funny story: it’s happened multiple times where we’ll need a windscreen for an aircraft and we’ll literally go and buy an entire aircraft just to harvest the windscreen out of it, and then we disassemble the aircraft. It’s just one of those critical key components that could justify a whole other avenue within our parts business.”

In 2021, during the height of the pandemic, parting out became unsustainable because aircraft values went too high to justify buying an airframe to part out. In turn this pushed parts prices up. 

“We ended 2021 and 2022 with a total of only five disassemblies,” said Wargo. “The demand for parts has never changed, but that created such a hike in the pricing for parts.”

Aircraft disassembly has put Fly Alliance in good stead to ease the pressure of sourcing parts for its fleet.

It is a double-edged sword for Fly Alliance. “It used to cost $20,000 for a Gulfstream brake. We’ve seen costs go up, sale prices go up and obviously the lead times have gone up from the manufacturers, which helps us as a parts company but is also a challenge for us as an operator,” he said. “The Gulfstream brake price and the Hawker windscreen price – they’ve gone up triple and they’ve never come back.”

Although OEM backlogs have got shorter, having aircraft out of action for weeks is still the norm. 

“I have a situation right where I have had a Global Express down for ten days waiting on a new windscreen from the manufacturer. When we ordered it, we were 22nd on the waitlist. We worked through the waitlist over the last ten days. We were supposed to get the windscreen on Saturday – it’s not coming until, hopefully, later today,” he explained. “That’s not good, because a Global Express down for ten to twelve days waiting on a $195,000 windscreen is devastating to the aircraft’s performance for the month.”

Vertical integration and fleet

Fly Alliance has built business lines that compliment one another, and ultimately offer better, well-rounded service to their clients, according Wargo.

Using the example of a jet card customer who is buying a 50 or 100 hour commitment, he said they want to know that Fly Alliance will have an aircraft available. “They want to know hat we’re not just out there hunting on a busy day trying to find a solution for somebody at the last minute,” he added.

The company has 40 aircraft in its fleet, and 30 available for charter. “That means we have a lot of ability to fit in a member trip. We have over 200 members, but not all 200 need a plane on the same day. Most of the time the market has ample aeroplanes at a great price, but if we ever need to cover a membership, we have it.” 

Fly Alliance also has seven brand new Cessna XLSs in its fleet. “If we have a customer who wants a brand new aeroplane, boom, we have that available. If they want to be a bit more budget-conscious and fly in a mid-2000s aeroplane, we have that available too,” he said.

The bulk of the fleet is midsize and heavy jets. Fly Alliance also has one light jet and a handful of super-midsize aircraft. “We find that the majority of customers see the value in the range and the size of a medium jet for the most efficient missions. Then the other half of their missions are the big aeroplanes – the Gulfstream, Global Express.”

Fly Alliance started out with a focus on heavy jets, but has diversified its fleet mix over time.

The smaller aircraft typically do New York to Florida, but are often overnighting in places beyond that – whether in Texas, Chicago or even the Caribbean. The Gulfstreams fly predominantly on routes across the Atlantic. “That’s where we want to see them – the Gulfstream and the Globals,” he said. “That takes us into the Middle East, into Asia. But predominantly the footprint of the larger aeroplanes is transatlantic crossings.”

For aeroplanes that Fly Alliance owns, it has been very “fleet-focused”. It is now up to seven fleet types. Whether it is around the Cessna XLS or the Gulfstream 4SP, Wargo said the firm builds economies of scale. “The aircraft that we own, we like to own in batches,” he explained. “When we first started back in 2019, it was Gulfstream, then it became the Hawker, then we added the XLS. We’re very much aware of our own abilities.”

“If someone came to us tomorrow and said, ‘Hey, I really want you to manage our Falcon 7X,’ that sounds awesome – it would be great – but that’s not the inquiry or lead we’re going to chase as forcefully as someone who says, ‘I’d like you to manage my Global 6000.’ We already have three Globals, we know how to manage Globals and we have competitive advantage – we have tooling, training, manuals.”

Fly Alliance is adding new aircraft at a rate of greater than one per month. “We’re at 1.1, 1.2 – something like that. We’ll end the year with over 50 aircraft in the fleet,” said Wargo.

‘Race to the bottom’

When Fly Alliance launched it did so with a focus on the heavy segment and operated to and from  New York, California and Florida. 

“We did what everyone else does in the US charter market,” said Wargo. “We found that pricing became quite competitive – definitely a race to the bottom. We found we were flying a lot of cycles on these big aeroplanes that are designed to fly New York to London and to do a three-hour segment used to cost us three cycles because of the repositioning time.”

To counter this, Wargo and his team stretched the legs of their aircraft and began operating internationally. “It required a lot of staff around the clock, dealing with all the different time zones, and the ability to dispatch our maintenance techs based outside the US. It is not something that most US operators just say, ‘Yep, tomorrow I’m going to win that trip to London,’ because to do that consistently means you need services outside the US.”

The big risk of chasing dwindling margins is the potential for sacrifice, particularly in safety. That is why Fly Alliance changed its business model. It is now Argus Platinum rated, attained Wyvern Wingman status and is at IS-BAO Stage 2. 

“We’ve seen a lot of operators have gone out of business over the past four years. Whether it’s a safety issue or just not investing in their aircraft enough, they won’t stay in business because at some point the low price and expensive fuel will put them in a situation that’s not sustainable for the long term,” said Wargo. “That’s what led us to go with the routes that our operation can support, that have better upside and better margins.”

Setting up in San Marino and India

Securing flight permits and the attraction of a growing parts market attracted Fly Alliance to set up air operator certificates (AOC) in San Marino and India. Its current fleet is wholly N-registered and it has full EASA approval for both its operations and its Part 145 repair station. Even so the time to obtain permits as a US operator with an N-registered aeroplane can be up to five days in Europe. Plus, the flight plans that a US operator must fly are established on roundabout routes.

“We’re expanding to San Marino is because we have clientele that we fly all over the Middle East, all over Africa, and most importantly throughout Europe,” said Wargo. “If you manage your aeroplane on a European registry, you can get permits for your charter customer within four hours – just like every other European operator – not five business days.”

Fly Alliance has also secured approval for its Part 145 repair station from the Indian civil aviation authority. Why? “Because the parts market was calling to us,” said Wargo. Fly Alliance is right to move now, the Indian parts market is growing in tandem with its business aviation industry. OEMs including Bombardier, Dassault, Embraer, Gulfstream and Textron are putting emphasis on sales in the region. Corporate charter requests tripled in 2025. Our inaugural CJI India event in March highlighted increased focus making the most of that charter demand, streamlining acquisitions and expanding aircraft ownership. 

Wargo has transacted more than 400 aircraft since 2011.

“It made sense for us because now they’re opening up the ability to manage aeroplanes there – to have an AOC and have a small operation there in India as well,” said Wargo. 

That said, the Indian fleet numbers around 200. According to CJI research in December 2025, the country ranks 14th in the top 50 registries by number of aircraft registered, but comes second to China in the Asia rankings.

“We are taking cautious steps,” said Wargo. “We don’t have the goal to have 40 aeroplanes in India today. But we also don’t see ourselves as just being a part supplier to the region. We see ourselves having all the verticals because if you operate aeroplanes in India and they reach a natural disassembly date, that becomes a parts acquisition aircraft for us so that we can begin selling parts.”

Managing ambitions 

Wargo is confident US management companies will face additional consolidation in the short- to medium-term. He is seeing some companies not adding value and others charging “incredibly high prices” for the services offered. 

“The names out there like Clay Lacy, Jet Aviation and Solairus are huge, awesome management companies – they’re obviously the biggest ones that exist now in the US market,” he said. “But I think there’s going to be a few more like that, but maybe at a little bit smaller size than 200-plus aircraft. I think that’s an opportunity for us.

“I see that us being an aircraft manager of professional extent with this wide-ranging capabilities list will allow us to really capitalise on aircraft management, and that’s going to be a big growth area for us.”