Why FlyExclusive moved its corporate headquarters to Raleigh
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FlyExclusive CEO Jim Segrave sits at his desk at his company's new office in North Hills. Photo: Zachery Eanes/Axios
A private jet company that operates hundreds of flights across the globe per day has settled into its new corporate headquarters in North Hills.
Why it matters: Publicly traded FlyExclusive has relocated its corporate headquarters from Kinston to Raleigh, adding more than 120 workers to Raleigh as well as relocating senior leadership, including the company's CEO Jim Segrave.
Driving the news: The company still maintains a large presence in Kinston, where it houses most of its maintenance and training staff.
- The recent state budget, in fact, allocates $30 million to the Global TransPark in Kinston to build new training facilities and flight simulators that would be used by FlyExclusive's pilots.
- But the move to Raleigh, Segrave told Axios on a recent tour of the office in the One North Hills tower, is all about making it easier for the company to hire talent in tech, sales, customer success and financial roles.
What they're saying: "Technology is driving a lot of what we do today and how we innovate," Segrave said, noting the company has invested heavily into using AI over the past year to streamline its operations.
- Every day the company is coordinating hundreds of variables across the country, from connecting customers to available jets and monitoring real-time weather to making sure jet maintenance happens as quickly as possible.
- "Having access to talent locally was a big part of how we needed to grow the business," he added. "Every piece of this business is being evaluated on how we can automate, streamline and make [ourselves] more efficient."
Zoom in: Founded in 2015, FlyExclusive has grown into one of the country's largest private jet charter companies, bringing in nearly $376 million in revenue last year.
- The company connects customers — typically high-net-worth individuals — to private flights, either through its club program (which starts at $100,000) or fractional ownership of jets.
- On its largest jets, a customer could travel up to 3,500 nautical miles on one flight (roughly enough to get from Raleigh to London).
State of play: The big investment into new technology can be seen across the third floor of One North Hills. Monitors cover most walls in the office displaying real-time data on everything from sales numbers and fuel efficiency to maintenance turnaround times and the live locations of maintenance crews.
- All of it is generated continuously in real time through AI agents. Six months ago, Segrave said, the company was not able to do that comprehensive of real-time monitoring.
- It's also made its internal scheduling of maintenance and jets much more efficient, he added, saving hours of work per day for other tasks.
What's next: Segrave hopes to continue investing heavily into the company's technology, including its internal scheduling software called Contrails.
- In the coming weeks, Segrave said, the company will start letting other private-jet operators use its software for free. It's part of an effort to make it easier to meet a higher demand of flights.
- "We're going to give access to our scheduling system free of charge … so that we can see their schedule and let them see our schedule," he said, "with the thought being that we can book each other's airplanes more efficiently or instantly without even talking to anyone."
