40 Years and Nothing But AERO!

Celebrate the New Year and the 40th anniversary of The Air Charter Guide with us! Yes, we have published a directory of air charter operators, brokers and aircraft for that long. It all started in 1986 with an all-US print edition including 3000 operators. Air Charter Guide founder Fred Gevalt was instrumental in defining an industry that at the time was in its nascent stages.  After flying architect and engineer colleagues on an IBM project back and forth to the jobsite and enjoying the convenience, Fred decided to create a guide to promote and bring together air charter.

Originally conceived as a computer network venture prior to the internet, The Air Charter Guide was developed by Gevalt, Jack Lapidas, Tammy Arico and Peter A. Boeing as an answer to the information needs of the “on-demand air taxi” business. Fred says, “At that point, what we really did, including ‘renaming’ air taxi to ‘Air Charter, ' was to introduce the industry to itself.”

Growing each semiannual issue, it was international after the first two years and became a major advertising/marketing force for an industry that needed geographic reach beyond the local Yellow Pages. The Air Charter Guide would become for years the leading reference and industry advocate for the world of air taxi and commercially available business aircraft.

In the role of industry advocacy, Fred used his position as publisher in 1998 to sue the Federal Aviation Administration, prompting the creation of the “Fractional Ownership and Regulatory Committee,” ultimately leading to new operating regulations for the popular "fractional jet" businesses that had been competing unfairly with air charter.

Early to adopt the World Wide Web, "The Guide" went online in 1994, then merged with CharterX in 2000, a competitive solution that provided the industry with an inexpensive quoting and reservation system for its fleet. CharterX was bought back by its founders in 2004, and the printed guide was purchased by Prism Business Media in 2006, a spinoff of Primedia's business publication division. The Air Charter Guide became a property of Penton Media in 2007, which was integrated into Informa in 2016.

Fred continued his advocacy for aviation by creating a revealing documentary about the TSA called “Please Remove Your Shoes” and is currently working on a memoir about his single-engine cross-Atlantic flight to Europe. While shoe removal isn’t always asked for anymore, security routines at the airport are still very much on the minds of many, and Fred’s new book, to be published later this year, “A Swim in the Firmament,” promises to be a wonderful read about a pilot’s journey. Stay tuned for more announcements about his book and other little or big surprises planned by the Aviation Week Network’s and Air Charter Guide’s teams to celebrate this very special year.

Above is a recent shot of two of the long-time principals of Air Charter Guide, Michele Markarian and Bettina Gentile, joining Fred for a festive holiday mingle. We all wish you a very Happy and Healthy New Year with lots of wind under your wings!