Founded

2001

Headquarters

Farmingdale, New York

Key People

James Chitty, CEO

Number of Employees

250

Phone Number

(631) 753-8881

Website

Talon Air

Talon Air

Talon Air, which has more than 30 midsize and larger business jets on its Part 135 charter certificate, specializes in worldwide aircraft charter and management for the metropolitan New York City market. It also offers airplane maintenance at its Long Island facility.    

Real estate developer and attorney Adam Katz founded the company in 2001, building a 40,000-square-foot facility at Republic Airport on New York’s Long Island and acquiring several new Raytheon/Hawker aircraft for charter, including a twin-engine Beechcraft Baron. Having earned his air transport pilot certificate, Katz often served as captain or copilot on charter flights. By 2006, he had added a rotorcraft rating to his pilot certificate and a Robinson R44 helicopter to the fleet.  

Katz took delivery of the first Hawker 4000 super-midsized business jet from Hawker Beechcraft Corporation in 2008; two Talon Air pilots were the first in the world to be certified to fly the aircraft under Part 135. At the time, Katz was the largest private owner of Hawker Beechcraft aircraft, with eight jets and two King Air turboprops.  

Talon Air built an additional 95,000-square-foot hangar and office complex in late 2009 and converted its existing facility to a maintenance shop. After receiving FAA Part 145 maintenance certification, the company began offering aircraft maintenance services in 2010. It added a fuel farm to the complex and received authorization to operate as an FBO in 2015. The FBO rebranded as Republic Jet Center and joined the Signature Flight Support network in 2017. 

In 2018, Katz made national news after a mother chartered a Talon Air Hawker 4000 from New York to Florida in the wake of the mass school shooting in Parkland that took the life of her son, a teacher. Katz donated the $18,000 she’d paid for the flight to a memorial fund in the victim’s name, and he refunded the $18,000 she’d paid for the aircraft’s empty-leg return to New York. Shortly thereafter, Katz sold the company to James Chitty, founder of charter broker PlaneClear and partner in New York-based Apollo Jets.  

Dubai-based Vista Global acquired an undisclosed stake in Talon Air in 2021 as part of a larger Apollo Jets acquisition. In 2018 Vista had purchased U.S.-based XOJet Aviation; and while Talon Air remains a separate company, its fleet has been integrated with that of XO, which now offers aircraft management and maintenance services via Talon Air.