LIFT Aviation Company is a relationship-driven business created by experienced aviation professionals to provide Aircraft Management, Aircraft Acquisition & Sales Solutions, and Conforming Dry-Lease Strategies.

We are a turn-key management solution for aircraft owners, coordinating processes to the highest standards, keeping aircraft FAA compliant, updated, staged, and mission ready.

We are a full-service Aircraft Acquisitions and Sales Broker.

We represent aircraft buyers with our proven method of golden rule business ethics, keeping our buyer’s best interests at the top, and as a value-driven  business we analyze industry data and utilize all resources available to buy the best overall aircraft for your needs at the best value price.

LIFT specializes in professionally representing sellers of aircraft who desire transparent communications and up-front expectations with the desired goal to sell the aircraft for a fair price in accordance to current market demands with a tried-and-true, hassle free, low-stress process.

LIFT Aviation Company has well over a decade of expertise in assisting owners in coordinating a Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR) conforming dry-lease strategy. We connect  non aircraft owners directly with owners and assist with the navigation and establishment of conforming dry-lease scenarios.

Whether a business trip with a few business personnel in and around Texas, a heavy load of passengers and baggage for a multi-family ski trip to Colorado, or a long distance flight to either coast, aircraft have different strengths for different missions.

At LIFT we hand pick certain aircraft types to manage due to their safety record, modern design, and high efficiency, covering the most ground on the lowest cost per mile. We specialize in coordinating access to different types of aircraft so you have a choice to match the right aircraft to your mission.

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Our services

Aircraft Management

AQUISITION AND SALES

COST OFFSET SOLUTIONS

 

AIRCRAFT MANAGEMENT

With LIFT, you can have peace of mind knowing your aircraft will be managed according to robust policies and procedures, maintaining your aircraft to the highest standards of FAA compliance. LIFT Aviation manages and maintains your aircraft under Part 91 of the Code of Federal Regulations, also known as FARs.

Part 91 of the FARs pertains specifically to Owners and Operators of aircraft. We dedicate ourselves to building and maintaining our knowledge of the intricate and ever-changing requirements to keep your aircraft in discrepancy-free, flight-ready condition.

The cost of owning an aircraft is not only the initial investment! We carefully leverage our established relationships to reduce your insurance premium, hangar rental rates, routine and unscheduled maintenance, and navigate best overall fuel costs.

Whenever you need it, your aircraft will be staged and ready to transport you and your passengers in full safety and comfort.

The tasks involved with ensuring aircraft airworthiness can be daunting and tedious. Our management services include:

• Regulatory compliance

• Maintenance coordination

• Avionics database updates

• Professional cleaning coordination

• Schedule management

• Staging of your aircraft (cleaned and stocked between each flight)

• Referral and recommendation of flight crews

• Consultation for reduction of ownership costs

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Managed and Dry Lease
Brokered Aircraft

Cirrus SR22
Piper Meridian
Conquest II
KingAir B200

Hawker-Beech – Premier 1
Cessna CJ1
Citation CJ2+

 

ACQUISITION AND SALES BROKER 

Trusted Acquisitions Service

Have you found yourself hovering around various manufacturer and resale websites dreaming of owning an aircraft? Have you seen a few deals that seem too good to be true? LIFT can assist you with acquiring your aircraft, ensuring a seamless purchase and helping you avoid the many costly pitfalls.

We’re here to ensure a successful purchase—and of equal importance—successful ownership of your plane.

For many, owning an aircraft offers the ultimate in control and flexibility. If you’re looking to buy, we’ll help you find the right aircraft that’s best suited for your mission.

Over twenty years of experience as passionate aviation professionals, we have developed and refined a four-step process to help you acquire the right aircraft for your specific needs:

1. Develop Your Mission Profile. Your distinct mission profile incorporates the purpose of your plane along with the desired range, speed, budget, and the expected passenger and baggage capacity.

2. Optimize Mission Needs We look at your needs against the costs of acquisition, maintenance, operating, and fixed costs. You may see a price online and think, “Wow, I can buy a jet for $350k!?” That may be possible—but the aircraft may cost additional hundreds of thousands to maintain each year. At LIFT, we’ll prepare you for the variable and fixed costs of each option, and explore cost-offset solutions.

3. Recommend Aircraft Options. We select and present you with the best available aircraft, how the aircraft will be utilized, considering time on airframe and engines, avionics, cosmetics, maintenance history and forecasted maintenance, and finally anticipated future value.

4. Evaluate and Secure Selected Aircraft. Once we find the right aircraft for you, we will provide a cost-of-ownership model based on market trends and forecasted usage. We will then coordinate all negotiations and inspections to minimize your initial cost, discuss our managed upgrade process, forecast upcoming fixed and variable costs, while using our tried and true professional documentation.

Throughout the acquisition process we will leverage our relationships with aviation-specific professional contacts for tax advising, aircraft-specific financing, insurance companies, and title and closing companies.

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Trusted Sales Broker Service

As an aircraft owner there will come a day when you will want to sell your aircraft. You have a decision to make as to who leads you through the process. This is part of aircraft ownership which can be or simplified based on who you choose to represent you! Count on LIFT Aviation Company as your partner to assist you with the sale of your aircraft with a refined, personalized touch.

LIFT Aviation prides itself on being the best of the best when it comes to selling aircraft we specialize in. We watch the market daily and have years of experience and data to support your sales position to maximize your sales price and minimize potential pitfalls and headaches during the sales process.

From professional photos and videos, to ongoing communications with potential buyers, weeding out low ball offers and overly-complex contingencies, presenting compelling offers, through pre-purchase inspections, to the touchdown of closing, we are your quarterback for this tedious event!

Cost Offset Solutions

Aircraft Access
Dry Leasing vs Charter

COST OFFSET SOLUTIONS

Owning an aircraft has high costs but does not need to be a daunting experience. LIFT offers an innovative method for offsetting your ownership costs, turning aircraft downtime into revenues. We have honed our expertise with a full understanding of what it means to facilitate conforming Dry-Lease scenarios.

Key to the success of this conformity is the Owner’s and Lessee’s complete understanding of their roles with which they will transfer the Operational Control of the aircraft from one party to the other. Critical to the success of this transfer are the full compliance and understanding of who is responsible for flight crew, airworthiness, insurance, and maintenance.

Enjoy full peace of mind that a LIFT Aviation Company managed Dry Lease Broker service will be in full compliance to the FARs.

While a conforming Dry Lease Broker service is our specialty, there are times where owners may desire, or have a need to, utilize a Charter Operator as the best overall method for reducing costs of ownership. We have relationships with local charter operators, where we believe in complimenting each other in the best interests of our clients is a win-win scenario.

We want what is best for you, and if charter operations are best for your needs, we have a history of coordinating calls and introductions to operators for you to interview and determine the best overall fit.

AIRCRAFT ACCESS

LIFT Aviation Company makes connections! No, not the connections at a major commercial hub airport connecting you to your final destination! We are connectors, or brokers, between you and aircraft owners who are interested in offsetting their costs of ownership through Dry-Leasing directly to you!
See below “What is Dry Leasing?”.

We specialize in an aircraft access solution of total control, meeting your needs at peak efficiency, where you have a customizable solution based on your destinations, space requirements, speeds, single vs multi engines, etc. Our experts educate you on every facet of the process, so you assume Operational Control of the aircraft fully educated and confident.

Whether you want to experience the benefits of aircraft usership without buying, or want to “try before you buy” and bypass “the plunge” of ownership right away, LIFT Aviation’s dry-lease broker service may be the solution for you.

This service offers many of the same benefits of aircraft ownership but with simple-to-calculate costs. As a process- and procedures-focused company, we provide the education you will need to maximize the benefits of your role as an aircraft operator.

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Education

DRY LEASING VS CHARTER

What is Dry Leasing?

A Dry Lease is simply an agreement used to transition Operational Control from the aircraft owner to another party. Critical to the success of a true conforming Dry Lease Agreement is the understanding of all parties and their roles which are clarified in the agreement.

The owner is the Lessor, where the user is the Lessee, who assumes Operational Control and therefor becomes the “Operator” of the owner’s aircraft during the access period.  Also key to the success of a true conforming Dry Lease is to follow what is actually stated on the agreements.

The legal definition of Operational Control means: with respect to a flight, the Operator exercises the authority over initiating, conducting or terminating a flight.

Similar to renting a vehicle from a rental car company, the lessee assumes the responsibilities and liabilities as the operator of the vehicle. When dry leasing aircraft, the Operator assumes the responsibilities of that aircraft and will assume the same responsibilities and liabilities as if they owned the aircraft during their access period.

The word “dry” in physical terms means without fuel; however, in legal terms, “dry” means the aircraft only is leased directly from the owner to the lessee/operator and no flight crew is provided. The owner or broker does not provide, nor force, or control the flight crew to the operator. The flight crew must be secured and maintained directly by the lessee/operator.

Per FAA regulations, LIFT, nor the owners of aircraft, will not assign pilots for any lease access.

The lessee/operator is responsible for securing a pilot (if needed). Pilots may be contracted to work directly for the Operator and again, must be completely separated from the owner or management company.

LIFT Aviation Company takes pride in following, and educating all parties on these keys to a successful Dry Lease arrangement.

The benefits and keys to dry leasing an aircraft are:

• Cost-saving mechanism for aircraft owners to transition operational costs.

• Experience of aircraft usage without the maintenance and costs associated with ownership.

• Control and flexibility that that aren’t offered in typical charters.

• High quality equipment that is carefully maintained.

• Selection of a pilot and crew you are most comfortable with rather than assigned.

• Convenience of time-saving aircraft access options.

• Choice of airport for departure and landing locations.

• Flexibility of your own schedule and last-minute changes.

• Typically lower costs than chartering.

• Dry Leasing is not a travel service and rather a method to access non-owned aircraft.

• As a Dry Lease Broker we are not marketing “air travel” to the public, and rather, our goal is to educate the public on how to Dry Lease… the right way.

Owning an aircraft comes with high monetary cost and commitment. That’s why LIFT works hard to offer our customers innovative, tried-and-true methods for reducing cost of aircraft ownership.

Since early 2013, we have specialized in offsetting the cost of aircraft ownership through conforming Dry Lease arrangements.

A conforming Dry Lease arrangement can yield great benefits on both sides so long as the owner and lessee/operator fully understand their role in the process,.

The key to success with leasing an aircraft to an operator is knowing your role in the process.

The expertise of LIFT Aviation, combined with the legal involved with the highly tuned documents behind our lease broker service, has a focus driven approach to educate owners and users so as to create a conforming coordination of the parties which maximizes education and understanding.

Dry leasing service includes establishing a connection between aircraft owners and potential lessee/operators.

When a lessee connects with an aircraft owner through a Dry Lease agreement, and the lessee has a clear understanding of their role and responsibility as the operator, Operational Control is transitioned to the lessee during the lease access period.

There are certain factors which must be understood for a dry lease to be considered a legal and a conforming activity:

1. The owner, who leases the aircraft to the user, the user, who leases the aircraft from the owner and assumes all “operational control” of the aircraft, and the pilot, who must be secured and hired under the control of the user, ALL must understand their roles in the lease activity.

2. The user/lessee must understand that, as the operator of the aircraft, they assume the responsibilities of the aircraft, very much like when the renter of a rental car assumes the responsibilities of that car.

3. The owner, nor any other party involved with earning a revenue, may assign or force flight crew upon lessees. It is entirely the lessee’s responsibility to secure and hire their own flight crew.

4. The owner has an obligation to maintain the aircraft for airworthiness, with all inspections, and flight critical items required by the manufacturer to be functioning. However, it is the lessee who must verify, either directly or indirectly, utilizing their pilot’s expertise, the airworthiness of any aircraft they are leasing.

The lessee, as operator, assumes the same flexibilities, benefits, responsibilities, and liabilities of the aircraft, as if they are a temporary owner of that aircraft.

While all of this may seem tedious, the benefit to leasing can provide many of the same flexibilities and benefits as owning your own aircraft.  This is due to the idea that when becoming a lessee, and assuming operational control, the lessee in essence becomes a temporary owner of that aircraft.

Charter and Dry Leasing :: Compare and Contrast

As an alternative to our Dry Lease Broker Service, some aircraft owners may find it to their benefit to participate with a part 135 Charter Operator.

Part 135 is a section of the FARs pertaining to Charter Operations. For owners, this is another method to offset costs with the additional comfort of eliminating almost all risks and liabilities.

This is accomplished by leasing an aircraft back to a Part 135 certificate holder, who then becomes the operator. This process can be compared to allowing your car to be used in a taxi service. The air taxi service in essence becomes the “operator” and they then market and sell a travel service to the public in essentially a small airliner.

A charter flight is a benefit to a user because ALL of the liability and responsibilities fall on the operator and 135 certificate holder. There is no need to take the time to understand conforming dry leasing, hire pilots, check airworthiness, etc!

For those who want no responsibility, do not want to take the time to learn how a conforming part 91 dry lease scenario functions, have on-demand and single-use needs, and accept their may be higher costs involved, then chartering aircraft can be a viable option.

When we are contacted for charter flights we are happy to represent you in the role of Charter Broker.

Unlike Charter Operations, Dry Leasing creates a unique experience of total control since you can design where and when you take off and land, while selecting who takes you to and from your destinations.

By participating in a conforming Dry Lease, comes the potential to access different aircraft for different missions, since multiple owners of varying types of aircraft with which to connect with ultimately creates a scenario where you can maximize your travel dollar.

While this can also be accomplished with chartering, in reality charter operators are in the business to selling seats to the first paying passengers. With our service we will not sell single trips to the public. We do not sell seats. We do not sell trips.

We provide connections to owners of aircraft through a dry lease agreement. And the ONLY way to access these aircraft is to take the time to be educated on how a conforming dry lease agreement works.

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Testimonials

Scott W

We take both short and long trips, with between 1 and 8 passengers, so there’s no one aircraft that handles more than 50% of our trips. LIFT’s excellent program allows us to tailor the aircraft – small or large, turbo prop or jet – to our mission. LIFT’s program saves us time and money, which goes right to the bottom line. Best of all, the people at LIFT are service-oriented, fun to talk to and always available.

CP

Lift is the best solution we have found – after participating in several other Jet ownership/jet card programs. Their fleet provides a wide range of options, for all of our needs. In addition, Coy, Christie and the team are absolutely first rate.

Hank S

Spoiler Alert: The flexibility and customized service of LIFT will spoil you rotten.

About Us

  • Coy Comontofski

    President, ATP, MEI, CSIP
    Contact him

    Coy Comontofski | President, ATP, MEI, CSIP

  • Loren Lawson

    Vice President / Business Development
    Contact him

    Loren Lawson | Vice President / Business Development


COY COMONTOFSKI attended The University of Texas. In 1996 he took the first step in his pilot career and earned his private pilots license. It only made sense to marry his new-found passion of flight with his Business and Economics degrees. Coy has earned his Instrument Rating, Single and Multi-Engine Commercial Licenses, Certified Instrument Flight Instructor Licenses in both Single and Multi-Engine Aircraft, and Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) rating topped off as a type rated pilot in the King Air 300/350. He has now flown more than 4000 hours of total flight time where almost all of this time has been as Pilot in Command (PIC) in high performance and turbo-prop aircraft. While building into a professional pilot, he was also positioning himself as an aircraft sales professional.

Today, Coy is an aviation businessman with a proven track record of exceeding expectations through the development of lasting relationships with integrity and ethical business practices. As a one-man team he successfully grew a satellite branch of a fractional aviation company from two piston aircraft in 2009 to nine piston and turbo-prop aircraft in 2013. Today, with the same passion it took to build himself into a professional pilot and successful aircraft salesman, Coy is the President and owner of LIFT Aviation Company.

Coy resides in Austin, TX near Lake Austin, is a proud husband and parent to a beautiful baby girl, spending his down time with his two golden-doodles, wake-surfing on Lake Austin in the summer and in the mountains of Summit County, Colorado in the Winter.

LOREN LAWSON Loren earned a degree in Marketing from Southwest Texas State University. She was raised with strong family values and a hard work ethic. She lives by the golden-rule treating others as she would be treated. When you talk to or meet Loren it is evident she has a passion for uncovering the needs of her clients and for customer satisfaction. She is an active listener and develops an individual focus for clients, which helps her to consistently meet their business needs. She has over 13 years experience in sales and customer service with Fortune 500 companies and brings this expertise to LIFT Aviation.

Loren is an incredible mother to a gorgeous baby girl, enjoys bird hunting, fishing, wake-surfing and snowboarding and loves the city she calls home, Austin, TX.


Contact Us

 

Connect with us!

888-234-LIFT (5438)

LIFT Aviation Company
Austin Executive Airport
(KEDC)
6012 Aviation Dr. Suite 210
Pflugerville, TX 78660

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