Corporate Entrepreneur
Three Generations Build
Panorama Flight Service
by Mark Batterson
Gene Condreras, president,Panorama Flight Service, Inc.
There was a day when Panorama Flight Service Inc. was known as the “candy counter airline” at Westchester (New York) County Airport. Today, it’s recognized by the Corporate Aircraft Association as the preferred fixed base operator (FBO) out of the suburban New York City facility.
What began in 1958 as a New York City tour operation by Ted Healy Sr., a retired CBS television cameraman who dreamed of flying, has today become the largest of five FBOs at Westchester with an $11-million terminal run by a third generation of the Healy family.
Healy Sr. had begun operations with a single-engine craft and 4-by-4-foot cubical that he financed through hawking customers on a bullhorn for $9.75 flyovers of the Statue of Liberty and the “asphalt jungle” of NYC. His wife supplemented the operation by running the candy counter/news stand at the airport.
At the beginning, the love of flying drove the idea of a business to bloom into what it is today - a dream realized.
Condreras still remembers his grandfather regaling him with folk tales of the airport’s early days stretching those stories into “the family dream.” That dream involved the family owning the premier FBO at Westchester that would be a “full-service, one-stop shopping facility providing small aircraft a home away from home.”
As a youngster Condreras recalls traipsing around the airport after his father, Ted Healy Jr., who had assumed the business in 1964 and began building the family dream by acquiring a twin-engine plane and converting to an on-demand charter service. By 1978 Condreras was employed by a corporate flight service at Westchester and the family dream became more detailed. By 1981, Panorama opened its own terminal and the family’s third generation, Gene, came aboard.
With the expansion to general aviation Panorama began answering the needs of the corporate flying community, developing its full range of services beyond charters into aircraft storage, fueling, detailing, maintenance, and management as well as customer service terminal operations. By 1992 Ted Healy Jr. retired, turning the family dream over to Gene Condreras and brothers Ed Condreras and Ken Healy to fine-tune and expand.
In August 1999, with Gene as president, Ed as vice president, and Ken as manager of charter sales, Panorama signed a 30-year lease with the County of Westchester for 21 acres at the airport on which to construct a new terminal. By April 2002, the facility was opened with 11,000 square feet of office space for the company’s operations of its charter fleet, flight school, and corporate flight management as well as luxury passenger and crew lounges and room to store and service more than 250 aircraft. The facility has 32 T-hangars for cold storage of aircraft, two 5,000-square-foot clear span hangars housing 10 other aircraft, tie-downs for more than 200 other planes and 20,000 square feet of heated hangar space. The company has three charter craft with a fourth, a 10-seat Challenger 600, to be added in the fall, as well as broker/operator agreements with 135 associate operators that offer a wide selection of aircraft that can be dispatched from throughout the country and overseas.
When Westchester Airport management asked Panorama its choice of designator for its newest facility, and the three brothers chose simply “Hangar T” as a tribute to the two Teds who started the dream.
In the two years since opening the new facility, Condreras reports that the operation has added 20 new employees to a total of 60 and has doubled its fuel sales to 2 million gallons annually, and that figure is growing weekly as Panorama operates at terminal capacity.
That growth continues the family legacy, which may be constructed on the ground of asphalt and concrete at Westchester County Airport, but Condreras insists the dream was founded on superior customer service harking back to Grandpa Ted hawking customers on the runway with a bullhorn.
“Because we are a family business, we are very service oriented. I spend more time in the lounges talking with customers and crew and out in the hangars and on the runway than I do in the office,” he notes. “My commitment to our customers is that they will always receive top service from us.”
Condreras reinforces that commitment with every contact, handing out a business card with his home telephone number, cell phone number, and personal pager number. “We tell our employees to always remember who we work for. All the policies and procedures you formulate are worthless unless they are put into use by everyone, all the time.”
And it seems the family dream has been passed to a fourth generation as Condreras’ daughter, Christine, has stepped aboard the management team to head the customer service department and help out in accounting.
Editor’s Note:
Panorama Flight Services is the “Highest Ranked NY Metro FBO” achieving # 20 in the nation for Best US FBO (and # 1 at HPN) in 2006 Pro Pilot FBO Survey.
Resources:
For flight information at Westchester County Airport (also known as HPN and referred to as White Plains), see www.westchestergov.com/airport/airportinformation.htm; mailing address is Westchester County Airport, 240 Airport Rd., White Plains, N.Y. 10604.
HPN is managed by AvPorts, which provides airport management services at Albany International Airport (ALB), Atlantic City International Airport (ACY), Republic Airport (FRG), Teterboro Airport (TEB), Tweed New Haven Regional Airport (HVN) and Westchester County Airport (HPN). U.S. Corporate Headquarters for AvPorts is The World Trade Center, 401 East Pratt Street, Suite 1344, Baltimore, Maryland, 21202. Call (410) 962-1411 or visit www.avports.com for more information.
For customer feedback, aviation services and ground support information capabilities see Panorama’s listing at www.airnav.com/airport/KHPN/PANORAMA. For company news and current fuel prices (the company is part of many Jet A discount programs, including Avcard, Air Routing, Arrow Energy, Associated Energy Group (Mariah Fuels), Avfuel Corporation, Best AeroNet, Canyon Fuels, Colt International, GlobeGround North America, Phoenix Fuels, Universal Weather & Aviation, Western Petroleum, and World Fuel Services), visit www.flypfs.com or call (914) 328-9800; (or toll-free) 888-359-7266. The company is located at Westchester County Airport, 67 Tower Rd. White Plains, NY 10604.
