Wheels Up takes delivery of pink King Air for breast cancer awareness

Wheels Up has taken delivery of a pink King Air 350i. The aircraft will fly for a year in the pink version of the Wheels Up scheme as a way to increase awareness of breast cancer.

Wheels Up’s Kenny Dichter hopes that pink King Air will not only raise awareness, but also help raise funds for Dubin Breast Center at The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.

Starting in October, Wheels Up members will be given the option of sponsoring the aircraft for each hour in the air. The company is expecting it to fly 600 – 800 hours over the course of the year.

“It’s a fly-a-thon, the same way you would do a walk-a-thon. So what we are going to do is go out to our members, and on an opt in basis, they will be able to sponsor the airplane”. Says Dichter. “We believe that we will raise over $1 million dollars in the 12 months with our first annual Wheels Up fly-a-thon.”

“We were pleased to hand over the keys to this one-of-a-kind, pink Beechcraft King Air 350i to Wheels Up. We applaud Kenny Dichter and everyone within the Wheels Up organization for their efforts to raise awareness for such a worthy cause.” said Scott Ernest, president and CEO, Textron Aviation

To kick the initiative off, Wheels Up are also planning to donate some money for each new membership sold during October.

“For every membership that is sold during the month of October, we’re going to donate $500 per membership. We are projecting 150+ new members in October, so we’ll be kicking this thing off with a $75,000 donation” added Dichter.