The CEO harnessing the power of TikTok for a new generation of private jet flyers

If you follow aviation accounts on TikTok and Instagram, it’s more than likely that the platform algorithms will have led you to the Amalfi Jets and the antics of the private jet charter’s founder and CEO, Kolin Jones. 

It’s no over-exaggeration to say that Amalfi Jets, and the firm’s extremely likeable leader Jones, have taken the social media world by storm and sharpened the private jet sector’s focus regarding how platforms such as TikTok can be harnessed to stand out in a very crowded field. 

Amalfi Jets came to fruition four years ago during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in a short space of time Jones and his high-school friend Calvin Yoon have turned Amalfi Jets into one of the most recognizable, contemporary aviation brands.  

Despite the social media fandom that surrounds the private jet charter, at its heart the Californian-based firm remains an extremely serious, focused business with a super dedicated team. 

Since its inception in 2020, Amalfi Jets has built a network of 3,500 private jets across 170 countries giving its customers access to top-of-the-range aircraft within a matter of hours.  

Amalfi JetsJones is a qualified pilot himself. He holds a degree in aeronautics from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida and is one of the youngest people to have joined the college’s Industry Advisory Board. 

The private jet brokerage arose from Jones’ obsession with safety. He spotted a gap in the market, as companies working in the private jet charter field were not started up by people who were pilots or had any real aviation background. 

While Jones’ drive and vision have undoubtably played a huge role in the company’s early success, Amalfi Jets presence on social media, specifically TikTok and Instagram, have launched it into the stratosphere.  

Since 2021, Amalfi Jets has amassed 1.2 million followers on TikTok, and its videos have been liked over 32 million times.  

While the content has evolved over the three years, Amalfi Jets’ social media success still revolves around sharing clips of Jones chatting to wealthy customers on the phone who are trying to book private planes, plus providing fun and interesting insights into the world of executive jets.  

Jones’ most watched reel is with one of Amalfi Jets’ regularly featured flyers, McKenna, which has been viewed 30.1 million times so far.  

@amalfijets Would you make a flight request to get out of a test? #FlyAmalfi #LuxuryTravel #PrivateJet #Aviation ♬ original sound – Amalfi Private Jets In the clip McKenna, who perhaps fits what most people think of as the stereotypical private jet flyer, is unhappy when she is told she’d need to wait at least three hours for an aircraft to fly her from Geneva to Saint Tropez.  

In another popular clip, the father of an influencer attempts to get his daughter a free flight on a private jet in exchange for promoting Amalfi Jets on her social media channels.  

@amalfijets We can’t believe a dad would say this. Should we have accepted his offer? #FlyAmalfi #PrivateJet #LuxuryTravel #Influencer #Aviation ♬ original sound – Amalfi Private Jets With the frenzy surrounding Amalfi Jets and its social media presence set to grow and grow, AeroTime decided that it was an ideal moment to talk to 23-year-old Jones about his company and what the aviation industry as a whole could learn from its success on TikTok and Instagram. 

Could you start by just explaining what you do and the service you look to provide customers with Amalfi Jets? 

Kolin Jones: Our biggest goal is providing the most unparalleled service possible, which you can obviously tell from our content. We like to go above and beyond for our clients. We operate on a global scale, so there’s about 3,500 planes that we utilize, based across 170 countries. In the entire charter market, there are around 26-27,000 aircraft that are available for Part 135 charter.  I am a pilot myself, so safety is paramount to us. Of those roughly 26-27,000 planes available, only about 3,500 meet our safety standards in terms of pilot hours, insurance minimums, aircraft quality and safety. So, when our clients fly with us, they can expect stable and consistent quality across the board, whether they’re flying here in the United States, over in the United Kingdom, Middle East and so forth. 

Amalfi JetsIn a crowded sector such as business jet chartering, how do you separate yourselves from the competition and define yourselves to attract clients? 

Realistically it’s a combination of a couple of things. So, in terms of our safety and sourcing standards, based on what we’ve seen in the market, no one goes as deep as we do in terms of the aircraft quality. There are certain pilots that aren’t able to fly our clients because they don’t have enough time and type, PIC time, multi engine and so forth.  

From an aircraft quality perspective, we have our reps that meet and greet all our clients at the planes. We have a flight ops team, and we have the buddy system. For every single flight there’s someone directly watching over that trip and working with our reps, so we get pretty real time availability. It’s common in the industry that, if a plane goes AOG (Aircraft on Ground) and gets stuck, these companies will say, ‘Oh, sorry but you’re stuck, bad luck’. We go above and beyond. So, if our plane goes AOG, we’re working to find a replacement, and that replacement could be a plane, could be a train, it could be a helicopter or a car. Our biggest thing is we get our clients to their final destination. We’ll figure out how to do it.   

You have become increasingly well-known through your social media approach, but I wondered how the idea arose to use TikTok and create these videos which give a much more down to earth impression of business aviation. 

A lot of that was internal research by our team, and by our marketing director. But I would say the biggest thing is, there’s a lot of documentaries and shows on information on Part 121 airline marketing, but there’s not a lot that shows, in depth, the private aviation side. We wanted our social media format to be more educational on what happens in the private jet industry. A lot of people didn’t realize the types of requests that companies like us get, and the fact that we get these requests and we say, ‘let me figure out a way to make this work’.  

So, I think just being a lot more transparent and treating the industry as more of an open book, while also being informational at the same time, but also showing that this is true to our level of service. That if someone requests [American fast food chain] Chick-fil-A on board in a state that doesn’t have Chick-fil-A, we’re going to figure out how to get Chick-fil-A to that place and go above and beyond. 

How do you align your company branding, based around exclusive private jets and business aviation, with using a social media platform such as TikTok?   

Frankly, when we first launched our TikTok, I was very against it. To that same point, I was like, this is not a very elegant type of thing that you would expect from a private aviation company. The industry is very tight knit, and frankly, the industry is older. A lot of these older, well-established, well-resourced companies do things in the exact same way, which is great, it’s the way things have been done. But in order to stand out against a lot of these great companies, you have to be over the top, ridiculous. So, I think our brand has changed. 

Obviously, TikTok is very different from the way that we actually work with our clients. And I will say on TikTok, that’s the read of 5% of our clients. 95% of our business is, ‘Hi I need an airplane price. One hundred grand. Awesome. Great, thanks. Money sent. Booked’. Very simple but showing things that are very common doesn’t go as viral on TikTok. 

But I think, honestly, we’ve embraced the fact that you have to do things differently. That’s allowed us to show a platform perspective of the level of service that we offer, and realistically it gets people talking about it at the end of the day. No one remembers the company that offers 10% off their next flight, but you remember the type of format. And I think building up that personal brand behind it, seeing some of our employees in the content, seeing what they’re like, and personifying the brand with a different approach has served us quite well. 

When we launched it, I was very hesitant, in the sense of thinking, ‘wow, one of our clients may see this and become very upset’. We just haven’t seen that; a lot of people think it’s funny. You see a lot of these corporate companies that have these huge production-level TikToks, but that’s just not what drives the engagement. That’s not what people go on to TikTok to see. You go on TikTok and these platforms to be engaged. And I would say our content is very provocative, very engaging, and sparks discussions. 

How does the use of social media relate to the growth of Amalfi Jets over the last few years? 

We track metrics across the board. So, we’re tracking website engagement and flight requests that come from the website. Without diving into a revenue perspective, we have seen record growth, and we have gained a lot of new customers, a lot of revenue, and just a lot of engagement and discussions, I would say. A lot more partnership discussions, and we’re growing out our escapade partnerships, which are our different restaurant and hotel type benefits that we offer to our customers. 

And honestly, I think, personifying the brand, we’ve got a lot of new corporate customers of executive assistants and travel agents that are booking things for corporate and they’re like, ‘Listen, I book private jets with all these different companies, [I love] just watching you guys’ content and seeing how you handle things and love to work with you’. 

Is social media something that more business aviation companies, or just aviation companies in general, could use? 

I would consider social media the new frontier for everything. Social media is so important, because it is one of the largest ways to reach a wider audience of people. I think that the traditional ways of marketing through billboards, newspaper ads and stuff are – I don’t want to call them archaic – but I think that social media is kind of a new frontier that’s more authentic, showing what things are actually like.  

In order to grow and to reach new people, you need to change with the times, right? You need to be over the top. So, I would say, for a lot of the younger companies in the aviation space, post content, right? Personify brand. At the end of the day, people like to do business with people. 

You said that initially that you didn’t feel comfortable with the social media approach and utilizing TikTok, but do you feel comfortable with it now? 

I would say that we have almost a million followers across platforms. Combined views are about 100 million across everything, so I’m very comfortable with it! 

And finally, what is your favorite business jet? 

I would say my favorite business jet is a Bombardier Global 7500. Gorgeous aircraft, four section cabin, impeccable range, very, very comfortable. I know a lot of people that are very keen on Gulfstream. Gulfstream makes beautiful aircraft, but I just love Global. 

To learn even more about Kolin Jones and Amalfi Jets visit the company website.

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