Amazing: An Inside Look At Spirit Airlines’ Aircraft Repo Operation

If you’re at all an aviation geek or interested in the airline industry, I implore you to find 47 minutes over the weekend to enjoy this…

Cockpit Casual documents Spirit Airlines repo operation

I’ve written in the past about the “Cockpit Casual” channel on YouTube, which is run by Steve Giordano. He and his business partner Bob Allen run Nomadic Aviation Group, which is a company that specializes in ferrying aircraft worldwide.

These guys have what I’d argue is the most interesting and entrepreneurial jobs of any pilots in the world (though of course their responsibilities are largely focused on running the company, rather than flying planes, as they have a whole team of people who can do that).

Aircraft are often leased to airlines, and the idea is that sometimes they need to be ferried somewhere between jobs or contracts. When a plane needs to be moved, there’s often sort of a “gap” in terms of the pilots who can fly the planes — the plane is no longer being “operated” by the airline, and it’s not always efficient for aircraft leasing companies to just have a bunch of their own pilots on standby.

So that’s where Nomadic Aviation Group comes into play, as they specialize in moving planes on behalf of airlines, leasing companies, etc., and have a huge team of pilots who are rated on all kinds of aircraft. As Steve and Bob will always say, their business is best during times of change, whether good or bad.

With Spirit Airlines having recently abruptly liquidated, there were of course many dozens of planes parked at random airports. Spirit no longer had pilots on their payroll (or the money to pay them), and the owners of the planes of course wanted their planes back ASAP.

So that’s where Steve, Bob, and their team of pilots come into play, as they have been pulling off an absolutely massive repo operation in the past couple of weeks. No, they’re not scaling fences of airports in the middle of the night and trying to sneak onto planes, even though that’s what one may typically associate with a repo person. Instead, they deal with an absolutely massive amount of paperwork, and logistical challenges, to a scale that’s hard to imagine. After all, they won’t just let anyone into the cockpit of a plane.

Not only is this incredibly interesting, but Steve, Bob, and the entire team just seem like such nice guys and such a class act, and I love all of their insights. There’s just no other content out there like what these guys produce, and we’re lucky that they’re so open with sharing their journey.

The Wall Street Journal even recently published a story about this operation, titled “The World’s Highest-Flying Repo Men Are Collecting Spirit Airlines’ Jets.” What well deserved recognition!

I highly recommend binge watching Cockpit Casual

As you can tell, I’m kind of a fan of Cockpit Casual, in case that wasn’t clear. 😉 So if this is your first time watching the channel, I can’t recommend enough not just stopping with the above video, but also watching all of the other ones. They’re all amazing, and seeing the way these guys fly planes halfway around the world, and the endless logistical challenges, is just utterly fascinating.

It’s amazing for how long these guys will fly on almost no sleep, and how effortlessly they switch between aircraft types, thanks to all their type ratings.

If I had to pick favorites, I really enjoyed their “Road Warriors” episode, where they piloted a Boeing 777 from Phoenix to Abu Dhabi, then had to position to Tianjin, and then had to fly an Airbus A320 back to the United States, with several stops.

I also loved their “Art of the Long Haul” episode, where they had to position to Australia in coronavirus times. This included flying Emirates first class to Brisbane via Dubai, then chartering an aircraft to get to Alice Springs (to avoid quarantine restrictions for interstate travel), then picking up an Airbus A320 and flying to Toulouse, with several stops on the way.

Then there’s the episode about them picking up several Virgin Australia Boeing 737s at the start of the pandemic, in what was an unbelievably challenging coordinated effort.

Anyway, that should be enough to get anyone started. You’re welcome, and sorry for the lost productivity. 😉

Bottom line

With Spirit Airlines having recently liquidated, there were a lot of planes parked at random airports, that needed to reposition, and returned to their owners. That’s where Nomadic Aviation Group sprung into action, as they’ve now repo’ed dozens of former Spirit jets.

That’s fascinating enough in and of itself, but what’s even better is that Steve Giordano produced an amazing video documenting this, on his Cockpit Casual YouTube channel. I can only imagine how insanely busy Steve has been the past couple of weeks, so I’m amazed he was able to get a video up this fast. Lucky us!

Anyone else find this stuff as interesting as I do?