A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Senior Editor

Curt Epstein

Among the companies making their NBAA-BACE debut this year is Business Jet Transport, a firm that provides turnkey aircraft ferry services.
Launched last year, the company is a subsidiary of Jet Test, which has provided the same type of business model for the commercial aircraft market for the past two decades. During that span, Jet Test had been called upon to provide ferry services for private jet aircraft in enough instances that Heath Barnett—a type-rated pilot in the Learjet 45, Learjet 60, and Bombardier Challenger 300 series—convinced it to spin off a separate company for the business aviation segment alone.
“Basically, we deliver,” said Barnett, who serves as its CEO. “If you bought a new aircraft and you don’t have a flight crew or anything set up and you need it transported, we’re the people you call because we handle every aspect of that delivery from the pilots to the permits.”
The company focuses solely on jets and as such can draw on its parent company’s experience. One benefit of that is the ability to operate flights under its own callsign, which means that all airspace fees and permitting costs are billed directly to Business Jet Transport rather than the customer.
“We know pretty much how much it’s going to cost to get that aircraft delivered, including every aspect, the permits, the fuel, everything, and we can put it all on one invoice,” Barnett told AIN. “That helps the brokers communicate to their clients how much it’s going to cost. We supply the invoice and the transaction happens. There’s no mail coming to them for overflight fees; we already know how much that costs and we’ve already paid it.”
Additionally, the company has its own contract fuel network and can even arrange and oversee return-to-service maintenance on the aircraft.
With dozens of jet types still in service, the Henderson, Nevada-based company has established a roster of contract pilots to meet any demand. “You must have an unblemished safety record and extensive international aircraft ferry experience,” said Barnett. “These are operations that need experience, so we have a really extensive vetting process.”
In one recent mission, the company delivered a nearly 40-year-old Learjet 35A from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Germany. In this instance, Business Jet Transport was hired by a broker on behalf of his client, who operates a fleet of vintage Learjets for use in military target training.
The customer requested “full comprehensive services” that included crew leasing and all travel arrangements (such as catering, hotels, and return airfare), third-party maintenance coordination, international flight planning, import and export assistance, ground handling requests, and fuel contracting.
Barnett’s crew even flagged up the aircraft’s non-compliant radios. “We can put an airplane anywhere in the world,” he said. “You just tell us where, as long as it’s not a war zone.”

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