Ross Aviation Buys Rival in California

Ross Aviation has acquired rival Signature Flight Support’s facility at California’s Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport, which gives it two FBOs at the Palm Springs-area gateway.

The new location expands Ross’s leasehold on the airport to approximately 40 acres. It will continue to operate the new location, which includes a 9,000-sq-ft, two-story terminal with offices, 25,000 sq ft of community hangar space and 17,500 sq ft of T-hangars, as Ross Aviation South, retaining most of the former Signature employees. Between the two locations, the company now has more than 122,000 sq ft of hangar space, and agreements with its hangar tenants can boost that number by another 20,000 sq ft of large aircraft storage capability.

“We see Thermal not only as a primary airport serving the Coachella Valley but also as an excellent alternative to other facilities in the region, which are becoming increasingly congested,” said Brian Corbett, Ross’s recently-named CEO. “We anticipate hosting traffic from a variety of previously traditional destinations in the area, and now have the ramp space and hangar capacity, along with outstanding passenger and crew facilities, to accommodate them comfortably throughout the year.”

The airport briefly had three separate FBOs, as the Desert Jet Center debuted its brand new, multi-million dollar facility in October, replacing the temporary trailers that it had been operating from.