Castle & Cooke Aviation Continued from page 37 W hen a private aircraft arrives on the ramp of a Castle & Cooke Aviation FBO, a name with a long pedigree stands behind the superior service offered by the chain’s three facilities. In fact, well before there were airplanes, there was Castle & Cooke. It was in 1851 that Samuel Northrop Castle and Amos Starr Cooke established a general store in Hawaii. That was the modest start of what grew into one of the five largest companies in territorial Hawaii, with agricultural and shipping interests. Fast forward to 2000, when Castle & Cooke, by then publically traded on the New York stock exchange, was taken private by Los Angeles- based entrepreneur David Murdock, who is still its Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer. Today, the Castle & Cooke name survives as one component of Murdock’s highly diversified portfolio, which includes land holdings, resorts, mining, vehicle leasing, building material, and commercial and residential development. Expanding Castle & Cooke into the FBO business wasn’t a stretch for Murdock, who in 1986 opened a purpose-built facility at Van Nuys Airport (VNY) to sup- port his in-house aviation activities. The Castle & Cooke Aviation brand, under which the FBOs operate, appeared for the first time with the buy-out of the Flite Line Services’ FBO at Snohomish County Airport-Paine Field (PAE) in Everett, Washington, in 2007. That same year, the company also acquired an office building and a single hangar at Honolulu’s Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL). The building was extensively refurbished and opened as an FBO in 2008. Two years later, the Van Nuys FBO opened to the public. Along with providing the requisite customer amenities, airport leasing terms called for the company to redevelop two hangars and lease additional acreage as conditions for opening a full-service operation, according to Tony Marlow, who has served as President, Aviation Operations and Business Development of Castle & Cooke Aviation since October 2018. Marlow, who holds an ATP (air transport pilot) rating, was general manager of the Hawker Beechcraft Services (now Signature Flight Support) FBO at Van Nuys when he joined Castle & Cooke Aviation Services in 2008. He 38 reported that the Van Nuys loca- tion presented a special marketing challenge. “Until it officially opened as an FBO in 2010, the facility was known as a ‘private operation,’” he pointed out. “So, we had to get the word out to people that we could handle their aircraft at Van Nuys.” Tony Marlow, President, Aviation Operations and Business Development of Castle & Cooke Aviation “Making that known,” said Marlow, “was done through advertising in trade journals and attendance at industry events, as well as word of mouth; but, even today, there is still a small population of aircraft opera- tors who do not know that Castle & Cooke Aviation at Van Nuys is a full service FBO. Consequently, we con- tinue to work on this.” The Van Nuys facility is headquarters for the Castle & Cooke Aviation chain, and of the company’s three locations, is the busiest, with 12 hangars, 55 based air- craft—mostly turbine powered—and servicing 24 to 36 transient operations daily. The terminal itself can best be described as a multi- plex format, consisting of three entities with a specific focus. One, referred to as the “South Lobby,” is the company’s original FBO at Van Nuys, a 24/7 operation offering a complete menu of FBO services, as well as office space. The “North Lobby,” used for overflow traffic, is also a fully functioning FBO facility, and made avail- able on request, usually to those customers with privacy restrictions. The “7501 Lobby,” Castle & Cooke Aviation’s newest development at Van Nuys, was designed for the special needs of VIP customers, but is also available for private parties and business meetings. Because it is not a full-service FBO with constant walk-in traffic, complete privacy is assured. Aviation Business Journal | Summer 2019
