Breaking into private aviation from supply chain — built a DFW charter estimator to learn the industry, would love feedback from people in the space
Long post but I’ll keep it real.
I’m a Supply Chain Management senior at University of Houston-Downtown graduating December 2026. Most people in my major end up in logistics, manufacturing, or oil & gas. I’m going a different direction — private aviation.
The way I see it, supply chain and charter brokering aren’t that different. You’re sourcing the right asset, vetting vendors, managing cost variables, and coordinating moving parts under time pressure. The difference is the asset flies. My background gives me a systems-thinking lens that I think most people coming into this industry don’t have — I think about repositioning costs, operator relationships, and trip economics the same way I’d think about a supply chain network.
I’ve been self-studying the broker side seriously for a few months — aircraft categories, range-first selection logic, the on-demand booking process, operator vetting, jet card structures, international permits. Before reaching out to anyone in the industry I wanted to actually know what I was talking about.
As part of that, I built a working web app called the DFW Charter Estimator — it’s a lead capture and quoting tool designed around the Addison Airport market. It lets users select aircraft category, input passenger count with accurate limits, get a rough estimate, and includes a CO2 emissions output with carbon offset tiers. Built it to learn the product side of aviation and to have something real to show people, not just a resume.
My long-term goal is vertical integration — brokering first, then acquiring operator stakes, eventually owning a Part 135 certificate and building toward a fractional program. The blueprint I study is Kenn Ricci’s. What he built with Directional Aviation — starting as a broker, rolling up operators, building fractional programs, and stacking cash-flowing assets instead of chasing one big exit — is exactly the model I want to replicate at a smaller scale in the DFW market. He’s the reason I got serious about this industry.
Right now I’m based in the DFW area, a member of NTBAA, and starting to build relationships at Addison Airport. I’d love any feedback on the estimator, advice from people who broke in without a pilot’s license, or just to connect with others who are obsessed with this industry the way I am.
Link to the estimator: https://dfw-charter-estimator.lovable.app
Happy to answer any questions. Thanks for having me.