Steve Sommerfeld

Jet Aviation as a maintenance organization when he bought the former Globe Air hangars in Basel, Switzerland and opened the first maintenance facility for business aircraft in Europe almost 50 years ago.Two years later, he expanded the company and entered a new line of business by acquiring the Pilatus maintenance and airline handlingoperations in Zurich and Geneva. Then realizing that customers may likely still require transport while their own aircraft are being maintained, he also began offering aircraft charter and management services to European and Middle Eastern customers.During the 1970s, Jet Aviation started opening facilities abroad, beginning with a maintenance facility in Germany and an FBO in Jeddah. In 1977, it began offering completions and refurbishment services at Basel, completing its first ever V.I.P.-outfitted aircraft – a Convair 880M — that same year. Today, Jet Aviation Basel is one of the largest independent completions center in the world.Continuing its expansion in Europe and the Middle East throughout the 1980s, Jet Aviation also successfully entered the U.S. market, making it the first global player in the business aviation industry. Consolidation and steady growth marked the 1990s, with the opening of a maintenance and FBO facility in Singapore in 1995 and an aircraft management and charter firm in Hong Kong, China in 2000.As pioneers of private business aviation, the Hirschman family built Jet Aviation up over nearly 40 years from a small local maintenance operation to a highly reputed global business aviation services provider, before deciding to sell the family-run business to Permira Funds, a private European equity firm, in 2005. Three years later, Permira sold Jet Aviation to General Dynamics on November 5, 2008. Jet Aviation currently operates as an independent business unit within the General Dynamics Aerospace Group and is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland.