Ryan Hall of August Aviation On The Future Of Aviation and Aviation Tech
An Interview With David Leichner
To have a successful career in the aviation industry, you must be a team player. Again, there are hundreds of moving pieces that come along with safe and efficient business aviation and no one individual can do it all themselves.
As part of our series about “The Future Of Aviation”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ryan Hall.
Ryan Hall has built his career in business from the ground up, starting from a 10-year stint at a large motorcycle and off-road dealership as a floor-sweeper to general manager, to kicking off his career in private aviation as a consultant and eventually becoming the CEO at August Aviation. The business experience gained by having a front row seat to this motorcycle dealer group scaling over time has given him a rare perspective on efficient growth and the need to adapt to evolving trends in order to stay on top. Having been with the August Group since its initiation, Ryan has helped achieve the goal of offering first class private aviation services that put clients at the heart of everything they do. Outside of August Aviation, Ryan is highly engaged in the community he lives in with his wife, daughter, and 2 dogs.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
In 2018, I was working as a private aviation consultant at an industry leading company. One of my clients was very impressed with my knowledge and level of service and they asked me to join their growing multi-family office.
As the multi-family office grew, we realized that our client needs for private aviation were being met but at a standard that did not meet our expectations. Pricing was often not in line with industry standards, the quality of aircraft did not meet client expectations 100% of the time, and there was no true feeling that our clients’ best interest was being looked after by our providers. At this point, August Aviation was founded with the goal of offering first class private aviation services with a family office fiduciary philosophy.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
August Aviation was born in April 2020. Prior to our launch, we spent a lot of time building our infrastructure. This meant constructing a full team of sales and operational specialists, designing and implementing safety regulations, marketing strategies, and growth plans. As we all know, the world changed around that time with COVID. This drastic change in the travel landscape forced us to ditch every assumption that we had made over the past year leading up to launch, and create a new strategy on the fly.
Though it may not have seemed so at the time, this turbulent time was the best thing that could have happened to our company. I do not say this because there was a strong demand for our services in the following years, but because it created a culture of every employee being able to provide potential solutions to problems, or pitch creative ideas and have their voice heard equally, whether they are the CEO or are still in training. This culture of inclusiveness and the “all hands on deck” mentality has been our greatest asset as it has allowed us to pivot as one unit and solve problems that no single individual would have been able to solve on their own.
As we scale, this will be at the core of how we operate because it truly allows us to maximize the value of every single team member.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful toward who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
The owner of the motorcycle dealer group that I worked for is the individual who not only taught me a lot about operating a business, but also the principles that lead to long term success. These lessons include corporate structuring for the long term and leveraging of available assets, but the most important lesson I learned from him was that a loyal and motivated employee base is a company’s best asset.
The best thing that he did for me was not try to retain me when I told him I wanted to leave the company and explore other opportunities. This allowed me to develop both personally and professionally. I was able to take my lessons that I learned at his company and apply them to grow August Aviation to where it is today.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
The overarching philosophy that has allowed August Aviation to grow is the mindset of having a 5–10 year return timeline with every decision that is made, or every practice that is implemented. This allows for traits, such as honesty, hard work, and transparency, to come a lot easier because we are not influenced by the daily ups and downs that questioning these traits comes with. For example, a short-sighted individual may have a hard time being honest with a client in a situation where a quick buck can be made by down-grading an aircraft, or shifting a departure time against a client’s request to better fit our schedule. When this long term mindset is truly adapted and bought into, our team is able to take actions and make decisions that are always prioritizing our clients because we know that over a drawn out period of time, this is what will lead to sustained growth and success.
Thank you for that. Let’s jump to the core of our discussion. Can you share with our readers about the innovations that you are bringing to the Aviation and Air Travel industries?
Innovation is defined as a new method, idea, or device. Interestingly enough, it seems as if the “old school” way of doing business fits that definition lately. Everywhere you turn, there is a new portal, app, or AI platform trying to make everyone’s life easier. August Aviation see’s that there is a strong concentration of private aviation flyers who truly value the personal touch that comes along with the traditional way of doing business, which is a suit and tie and a handshake that ensures we are paying close attention to detail and adding a personal touch that AI can’t provide. I am sure we will develop an app that creates a seamless user experience at some point in the future, but until then we are delivering excellence the old-school way that our clients have been demanding from us for years.
Which “pain point” are you trying to address by introducing these innovations?
We fully understand that consumer preferences are shifting. Procuring a product or service on an app without needing to speak to a live human is attractive to a large percentage of the North American population in 2022. That said, the percentage of frequent private jet flyers who fit this mold is extremely small. Most of our clients are individuals who have worked for many years to get to the point where private travel is a luxury they can afford. That particular demographic demands a 1 on 1 experience that allows them to be able to pick up the phone and speak to the team who is ultimately responsible for keeping them and their family safe and comfortable. Unfortunately that has been harder and harder to find lately, but August Aviation stands ready to provide that truly personalized private jet experience.
How do you envision that this might disrupt the status quo?
Quite frankly, providing personalized private jet consulting alone will not disrupt the industry. What it will do is enable us to build an infrastructure brick by brick. When the time is right, we will be able to pair this solid infrastructure with meaningful M&A that will allow us to truly disrupt the industry.
Fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your 3 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career In The Aviation Industry?
- You need to have absolutely perfect attention to detail. Individuals who can afford to utilize private travel did not get to that point in their career by being sloppy. They expect the same awareness and attention to detail from everyone they interact with, especially individuals they are entrusting with their safety.
- You need to be curious and eager to learn every single day. There are many moving pieces that come along with safety and efficiently transporting people around the globe. As a trusted consultant, you must always be willing to learn new things because problems will arise once you think you know it all and make assumptions because you are too lazy to learn new things!
- To have a successful career in the aviation industry, you must be a team player. Again, there are hundreds of moving pieces that come along with safe and efficient business aviation and no one individual can do it all themselves.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
There is a severe wealth gap in the United States. Unfortunately, this gap increases every year at a compounding rate. This can not be solved with one swift action, but implementing financial literacy programs into school systems in underserved communities will help future generations make up ground that they sacrifice from birth just because of where they are born.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
WWW. August-Aviation.Com
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
About The Interviewer: David Leichner is a veteran of the Israeli high-tech industry with significant experience in the areas of cyber and security, enterprise software and communications. At Cybellum, a leading provider of Product Security Lifecycle Management, David is responsible for creating and executing the marketing strategy and managing the global marketing team that forms the foundation for Cybellum’s product and market penetration. Prior to Cybellum, David was CMO at SQream and VP Sales and Marketing at endpoint protection vendor, Cynet. David is the Chairman of the Friends of Israel and Member of the Board of Trustees of the Jerusalem Technology College. He holds a BA in Information Systems Management and an MBA in International Business from the City University of New York.
