Kemmons Wilson

High-flying service wins recognition for Wilson
Jane Roberts
commercialappeal.com
April 15, 2004

Operator offers support for visiting corporate jets

If downtown is the city's rec room, Wilson Air Center is its front door, the green marble foyer where people like LeBron James and Britney Spears get their first taste of Memphis.

And for the fifth year running, Aviation International News readers have voted Wilson Air the best fixed base operator.

"Basically, they're doing something extremely right in a very competitive field," said Aviation International News editor Mark Phelps. "Our readers are impressed with the attitude at Wilson Air. It's a service attitude without being subservient."

Wilson Air is a 17-acre, full-service stop for corporate jets with offices and hangars at 2930 Winchester. It offers 100,000 square feet of plane rental space in nine hangars. The company intends to build a 10th this year.

In days when airplanes couldn't go far between fill-ups, FBOs were essentially gas stations guaranteed with plenty of high-profit fuel sales.

"It's flipped around 180 degrees," Phelps said. "Pilots today buy fuel to reward good service."

Wilson Air started out in 1996. In a year, it had earned 22 percent of FBO fuel market share at Memphis International Airport. Today, it has 60 percent, said Wilson Air vice president David Ivey.

When Ivey came for a job interview in 1996, president Robert Wilson - son of Holiday Inn founder Kemmons Wilson - told him there would be no saying no to customers at Wilson Air.

"That was the creed in the hospitality industry," Ivey said. "You exceed customer expectations."

Wilson Air offers Pentium IV desktop computers with 17-inch monitors, wireless Internet connections and a weather room for pilots.

Wilson has computer tie-ins to Hertz, a full-service mechanic shop and an Elvis jumpsuit in the closet for special Memphis welcomes.

In minutes, the staff can round up limos, hotel reservations, catered crab dinners or a slab of Rendezvous ribs, always for sale under the counter.

"When you pull up, you hear Memphis music, and they have a bell cart come to the side of the plane to load your bags," said Phil Trenary, president and CEO of Pinnacle Airlines and a former corporate pilot. "They'll bring a car to the ramp for you. It's the ultimate customer-service experience."

People in aviation give the credit to Wilson, who they often see working the tarmac himself.

"Anytime you get a CEO like that who's willing to show employees what he expects by doing it himself, people will follow him every where," said Richard White, director of properties at Memphis International Airport. "Bob shows it every single day."

He learned everything he knows about hospitality - right down to putting the names of special guests up in marquee lights - from listening to his mother and father talk at dinner.

"We wanted to be good, but we never had any initial idea about being the top in the country," Wilson said. "I said we would be ranked where we deserved to be ranked. Pop always said, 'If you're great, you'll get every due credit.' "

For most pilots and their high-net-worth passengers, the service starts with Wilson's signature 26,000-square-foot canopy - the largest at any airport in the world - designed so multiple planes could land at once at the front door.

"It means we have to tow airplanes more, but it's worth it as long as everyone gets out at the front door," Wilson said. "We treat every airplane the same, and that's mostly because I've never flown in on a big plane."

Between 50,000 and 60,000 corporate jets land or take off in Memphis a year, either at Wilson Air or its competitor, Signature Flight Support.

"Anyone you think would fly on a private jet, does," Ivey said.

Wilson Air keeps their names quiet, and sometimes shoos gawkers away.

"This is our job. The reason these individuals - everyone from CEOs to celebrities - fly on private aircraft is because they want to remain anonymous. That's our job, and we know what has to be done," he said.

It's not to say that the staff doesn't have some of the most extensive autograph collections in town.

"Elton John came in one day, and we were playing his music. He started dancing underneath the canopy," Wilson said. "I get a kick out of the girls because they really take note of who's coming through.

"Scottie Pippen signed his new contract in the conference room when he left the Bulls," Wilson said. "You'd be surprised what's happened in this conference room."

Wilson Air also deserves credit for impressing the hardest to impress.

"If you consider who walks through those doors and the type of aircraft they're using, these are the decision-makers," Trenary said.

"People try real hard to cater to that segment of the market. Wilson Air just does it better."

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