Founded

1949

Headquarters

Herndon, Virginia

Key People

K. Hunter Weiss, president

Number of Employees

7

Phone Number

(703) 787-8800

Website

Welsch Aviation

Welsch Aviation

Welsch Aviation, which claims to be the oldest continuously operating aircraft brokerage, has provided sales and acquisition services for high-end business airplanes since 1949. Welsch has never owned, operated, or inventoried aircraft. It has, however, completed more than 1,000 transactions with a cumulative value of over $5 billion. 

Before founding the firm, James C. Welsch, Sr., sold aircraft for Aeronca until 1937, Consolidated-Vultee until 1945, and Cessna until 1949. First located in the Marine Air Terminal Building at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, Welsch Aviation initially catered to national and international corporate clients seeking preowned commercial aircraft and military airplanes converted for commercial use. A 1953 article in Flying magazine described Welsch as an “aviation pioneer” and “an aerial ‘cowhand’ who rounds up scarce items with the acumen that comes with experience.” 

In the late 1950s, the company partnered with Frederick B. Ayers and Associates to sell Convair 240 and 340 airliners refitted with luxurious interiors. Welsch sold a Convair 240 to Joseph Kennedy for his son’s U.S. presidential campaign; the Caroline was credited with being the first private aircraft used by a presidential candidate, providing John F. Kennedy an advantage in the 1960 election. 

The Gulfstream I turboprop appeared in 1959 and the company began its long history of selling the entire line of Gulfstream aircraft shortly thereafter. Of the more than 400 aircraft sold by Welsch Aviation between 1985 and 2017 (the year the company stopped counting transactions), more than half were Gulfstreams.     

James C. Welsch, Jr., joined the brokerage in 1960 after earning a degree from Hofstra University and completing a stint in the U.S. Army. Taking over as president after his father’s death in 1982, he brought on partners who opened satellite offices: Robert Hart in Savannah, Georgia in 1983; and Kenneth Weiss in Herndon, Virginia (near Washington, D.C.) in 1985. Weiss’s son, Hunter, joined the D.C. office in 1987 and became a partner in 1996. A third office opened in Houston in 1994. 

Welsch, Jr.’s daughter, Kristin, joined the New York office in 1992 and continues to run it as director of business development. Welsch, Jr., served as company president until 2014, when Hunter succeeded him as president, and continued as a partner until his death in 2017. At that time, sole ownership passed to Hunter as Hart and Kenneth Weiss, who remain sales directors, had rescinded their partnerships in 2000.