Building a brand in a relationship-driven industry

Want the whole story? Watch the full discussion at the end of the article.

Moving away from traditional marketing

Air charter is a business like no other. It’s personal and deeply relationship-driven, which means companies can’t always market themselves the way other industries do, and probably shouldn’t try to.

Building a strong brand in aviation looks different. The focus is often less about traditional marketing and more about staying memorable while keeping relationships, trust and reputation at the center of everything you do.

The challenge is that there’s no single way to do that. During the discussion, the panelists shared very different perspectives and challenged the usual idea of what marketing should look like in this industry.

For Kolin Jones, Founder & CEO of Amalfi Jets, that means being relevant enough for people to remember you, even outside of air charter. “Most people outside the industry can’t name any big companies, so if we can be the most socially relevant, culturally relevant, the loudest and the most provocative, that’s very helpful for our business.”

But being memorable doesn’t always mean being the loudest. Often, it comes down to telling a story people actually connect with.

That’s exactly how Tru Pham, CBO at FlyHouse, approaches it: “I’m not trying to be the loudest in the crowd, I’m trying to make you remember who we are and what we do. There’s a lot of stories I need to tell, and I want to make sure everyone understands them.”

The customer experience is the brand

But telling a strong story is only part of it. For a brand to actually mean something, the experience has to live up to the promise.

As Matthew Lesmeister, COO of flyExclusive, explained: “You can buy your way into the conversation, but if you want to stay there, you have to deliver. Coming from an operator background, we have to focus on consistency and actually following through on what we promise. When we set an expectation, it’s on us, and nobody else, to live up to it.”

That’s the reality of branding in business aviation. You can spend time and money on marketing, but if the experience behind it falls short, none of it really matters.

When asked where companies often miss the mark, Erin Donnelly, COO at Charter Flight Support, put it plainly: “I think it’s lack of execution. Our storytelling is 100% in the execution. When you’re making a brand promise, but the execution isn’t there, it breaks trust.”

In the end, people remember the experience and delivery long after the colors of your logo.

Reputation comes down to trust

Consistency was a theme throughout the discussion. A strong brand isn’t built through marketing alone, but through the experiences people have with a company over time.

For Matthew, that starts internally. “You have to have core values that tie back to the story you’re telling. Every component of your team need to understand those principals. For us, it starts with the sales team and then it translates into the crews that are flying people every single day.”

But consistency only works when companies truly understand their customers. As Erin explained, there’s a difference between “assuming what customers want and actually knowing what they want.”

The discussion kept coming back to the people behind the brand. Tru summed it up well: “If I stripped away the FlyHouse brand, I’m equipped with a team that has been here longer than the brand itself. To say that the brand is their foundation isn’t really true. it’s actually the other way around.

Because in air charter, strong brands are built the same way strong relationships are: through consistency, responsiveness and showing up over time.

As Kolin put it, “People buy from people. It all comes down to repetition.”

Building a brand people believe in

The panel showed that branding in air charter doesn’t have to compete with relationships. The strongest brands are often the ones that make relationships easier to build in the first place.

There’s no single formula for getting it right. Some companies focus on visibility, others on storytelling or customer experience. But the common thread was consistency. Saying what you stand for, following through on it, and giving people a reason to come back.

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