CHARLIE BRAVO| RENE BANGLESDORF Building a world-class aircraft brokerage An interview with Charlie Bravo Aviation owner René Banglesdorf Selling pre-owned aircraft consistently for good prices is an art backed by science. The art comes in the age-old craft of showing the buyer his or her dream in a tangible, purchasable form, and doing so in a way that turns a one-time customer into repeat business. Even if they don’t upgrade for fi ve or ten years, when they do, you want them coming back to you because what you did for them fi rst time round was solid. The science comes down to knowledge, knowing everything about the current state of the market for every model that you sell, who owns them, who’s likely to sell them and for what. This has been the guiding principle that has shaped René and Curt Banglesdorf’s aircraft brokering business, Charlie Bravo Aviation, from day one. Before getting into the aircraft sales business in 2002, René and Curt were working in publishing and marketing in Washington DC. Then they moved to Texas where Curt worked, and René did some marketing, for an aircraft sales company. This gave them an insight into the aircraft brokering business. “Curt and I talked it over and we decided we could do more working for ourselves. It was early 2008, just before the fi nancial markets around the world were crashing and the bottom fell out of the aircraft sales market. Nevertheless, we got deals done and made it through the fi rst fi ve years in reasonable shape. Now we are on a fairly aggressive growth track and the market in the US is looking much more promising,” René Banglesdorf says. In September, Charlie Bravo closed its 15th sale so far for 2015 and Banglesdorf is confi - dent that the company, now up to seven staff, will sell between 20 and 30 aircraft by the year end. This is about par for the course for a decent year for the company and makes Charlie Bravo one of the more successful aircraft brokering businesses. “One of the unique things about our business is that each staff member focuses on a particular OEM. For instance, my Citation analyst looks at all the Citations available on the market on a daily basis and keeps track of aircraft that are not on the market but whose owners might entertain an offer. This analyst knows the asking price for that model of aircraft and more than that, they have a very good sense of what a particular Citation owner will take for his or her aircraft. The analyst will also know if there are any historical issues with the aircraft, such as corrosion, whether it is a single owner model, heavy or light usage, whether it is doing charter and so on. They track all the things that make an aircraft more or less valuable, and we keep pretty sophisticated records on all the markets and models that we cover,” Banglesdorf explains. Today the company buys and sells jets, turboprops and helicopters all over the world. Charlie Bravo’s initial focus was pre-owned business jets; however, the business expanded into turboprops in 2010 and in 2013 it added helicopters to its specialisms. So what makes the business grow? Banglesdorf reckons that the best leads generally come from word of mouth. “People we have done work for before are tremendous assets to the business. They refer us to others that they know are looking for aircraft. They know that we are knowledgeable and they know that in recommending us they are helping a friend, client or colleague to fi nd someone that will really be able to help them,” she says. On top of that, regular advertising of aircraft for sale brings in a steady stream of leads. Plus, in the course of phoning around the market the company’s analysts get a pretty good feel for aircraft owners that are getting ready to upgrade their aircraft to a newer model or a different OEM’s product. “Another great source of leads for us is being diligent about following up on people who visit our web site and request buyers’ guides or other information from us. If someone wants a market report on the pre-owned market or some segment of it, that is generally a pretty 48 International | Autumn 2015
RENE BANGLESDORF| CHARLIE BRAVO Clearly newer aircraft sell faster than older models. Any aircraft with a good pedigree and a reasonable price is going to sell René Banglesdorf Autumn 2015 | International 49
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