Steve Santo started his career as an assistant district attorney in New York and then joined a private law firm. In 1998, he gave up his partnership to found US aircraft leasing company Skyline (now Avantair). He is currently chief executive of Avantair
What made you decide to switch careers?
Throughout junior high and high school, I spent most weekends at one of my local airports in New Jersey. I’ve always had a love of aircraft and I wanted to pursue a career in aviation. I learnt how to fly in college, but ended up going to law school. I wanted to go into aviation law, but got recruited by a prosecutor’s office in New York instead. When I was in law school, I never dreamed of where I would be today. You graduate with a good degree and you end up in that particular field – it can be hard to move into something you really love.
I saw untapped potential in the fractional market. The travel budgets of a lot of our law firm’s clients could easily sustain a fractional share. When I started out, I already had people who I knew were going to buy interests in the aircraft. To have started it all from scratch would have been really hard.
How difficult was it?
From a financial perspective, it was hard to do – I’d just been made a partner when I left my law firm. I was scared to death. I had a mortgage and I had to put every dime into the company. We weren’t able to get traditional financing as a start-up. I was a hair away from financial ruin, but I did it because it was a dream. Life is short. You might only get one or two opportunities to get what you want.
Just getting into aviation as a career meant there was a definite learning curve. Being a lawyer helped me get by because there are so many regulations to be aware of in the US. What I love is that you can never learn enough and you have to learn it all from the ground up. To get into aviation at this level, you really have to start at the bottom in terms of knowledge of regulations, operations, maintenance, sales and so on.
Are there opportunities for people at all levels and from different careers to get into the fractional market?
I definitely think we are at the very bottom of the small, mid-size and very light jet market. It’s going to explode over the next 10 years. Forty per cent of people who buy with us are new to the market.
There are a lot of opportunities at companies because they are growing so fast. A year ago, we had 20% of the employees we have now. We have a lot of people from other industries – the hotel, gaming and movie industries, for example. They all just love aircraft. We are still hiring about five employees a month.
Source: Flight International
