Founded

2006

Headquarters

Carlsbad, California

Key People

Casey Miller, co-owner and president; Solomon Short, co-owner and chief operating officer

Number of Employees

72

Phone Number

(800) 840-0310

Website

Latitude 33

Latitude 33

Latitude 33 Aviation operates aircraft on its Part 135 charter certificate and offers aircraft management, charter, sales, and acquisition services from its base at McClellan-Palomar Airport near San Diego and several other western U.S. locations.

Pilot Casey Miller—who soloed on his 16^th birthday and then became a Learjet captain for Los Angeles area–based Clay Lacy Aviation at age 23 and a Gulfstream captain at age 25—founded Latitude 33 in 2006 at age 26 with one Cessna Citation CJ1+. The company name reflects the geographical coordinates of its San Diego location on latitude 33 degrees north. 

Within two years, Miller was managing five Citations with no additional employees. He expanded operations outside of California in 2009 by adding an Aspen, Colorado–based Citation to Latitude’s managed fleet. By the end of 2010, the company had 10 managed aircraft in multiple locations, still with Miller as its only employee.  

Solomon Short, an airline transport–rated pilot with type ratings in the King Air and Citation CJ1, joined the company in 2011 as a 50/50 partner. Short had met Miller on an FBO ramp in 2008 after both men had piloted separate Citations from Carlsbad to Phoenix, and the two San Diego-based pilots kept in touch. Within months of Short’s arrival at Latitude, the company obtained three new clients and aircraft in two new locations.

Receiving FAA approval for Part 135 charter operations in 2013, Latitude grew to 35 employees over the next four years. Celebrating its 10-year anniversary in 2016, the company moved into new headquarters at McClellan-Palomar Airport, becoming the exclusive private jet charter operator for Jet Source, an FBO at the airport. That year, the company also produced its first significant aircraft sales, recording 14 transactions worth $60 million, and began providing airplane acquisition services.  

Latitude 33 obtained the ARG/US Platinum Rating for safety excellence in 2017 while accumulating approximately 11,000 flight hours and adding its first non-Citation aircraft, an Embraer Legacy 500. This and a Cessna Citation XLS+ brought total aircraft assets under management to $157 million. 

In 2018, Latitude 33 began adding factory-new Bombardier Challenger 350s to the charter fleet at the rate of one and a half per year through 2020. A new Pilatus PC-12 NGX was also added in 2020. As of mid-2021, the company manages more than 30 aircraft in 11 locations with 20 under charter; approximately half of the airplanes in the charter fleet are less than five years old.