It was their passion for flying that lead Herb and Arlene Elliott to found Elliott Aviation in 1936. Beginning initially as a flying school and an aircraft sales business, Elliott has evolved over the years to be a full-service MRO business with FBO services at three locations. They also buy, sell and trade aircraft under the Elliott Jets brand and manufacture products under the Elliott Technologies brand. Elliott’s MRO business is the segment where the company has experienced the most growth, thanks in part to the company’s adherence to Herb and Arlene Elliott’s founding passion of providing the best service to their customers. A passion Elliott Aviation continues to carry through 2020.
“The core values of unmatched quality, uncompromising integrity and unbeatable customer service are built on the same founding principles that formed our company more than 80 years ago,” said Greg Sahr, president and CEO of Elliott Aviation. “Our dedication to these values has helped establish ourselves as a major brand in the U.S. Business Aviation MRO segment. We pride ourselves on delivering a personal touch and a family feel to our customers that we feel sets us apart from our major competitors.”
Elliott provides aircraft maintenance, avionics, paint, interior, parts, accessories and FBO services for mid-sized jets and turboprops. Sahr said Elliott continues to be a leader in mid-sized turboprops and jets.
“After the ADS-B spike in demand, the industry, and the world, is facing a very challenging road ahead after COVID-19 is behind us. It was a problem that no one saw coming, and it fundamentally changes the way we interact and operate as a business. However, the market still has demand for major avionics retrofits like the G5000 for the Citation Excel/XLS, G1000/G100NXi for the King Air and the G5000 for the Beechjet 400A/Hawker 400XP. Maintenance, paint and interior are also seeing steady demand. Our customers keep coming back to Elliott Aviation because they see the value in the service we provide. We’re big enough to handle all of their aircraft needs, but small enough to give them the personal touch they deserve,” explained Sahr.
It isn’t just the way they treat their customers that helped Elliott grow into the MRO business since its inception, but through the partnerships the company has forged along the way.
“Throughout the years, we have also been successful by delivering on our vision of building partnerships that last. As an authorized facility for many different airframes, we have long-standing OEM relationships with key industry partners like Textron, Embraer and Daher. As an authorized dealer for many aircraft products, we also have strategic partnerships with companies like Garmin, Gogo, Collins, Raisbeck, Blackhawk and many others,” Sahr described.
He continued: “In order for an independent MRO like us to be successful, we understand clearly that we have to have partnerships. The strength of the partnerships we have is absolutely critical to our success. And I think our approach as a true partner has helped us grow those relationships.”
It’s not only partnerships that Elliott has forged throughout the years, but also the creation of new segments of their business — such as Elliott Technologies, which creates state-of-the-art aircraft cabin products.
“We have recently introduced the Elliott Technologies division of the company, which designs, manufactures and sells products for use in aircraft cabins. Elliott Technologies currently manufactures Prizm cabin lighting, which is a variable LED cabin lighting solution that is easy to install, easy to use, easy to quote and available at an affordable price point. Not only are we offering this at our Moline facility, but we have positioned a dealer network of other well-known 145 repair stations that can also install this product,” Sahr stated.
The formation of Elliott Technologies came when the company realized there was a need in the marketplace for reasonably priced, variable-color LED lighting solutions for business aircraft.
“The current solutions were complicated, expensive and didn’t work as promised,” said Sahr. “Our engineering team partnered with Western Illinois University to help create a prototype for what is now our Prizm LED cabin lighting. Prizm LED cabin lighting is a variable colored LED lighting solution that is available for virtually any turbine-powered aircraft. It is available for many different aircraft lighting applications including upwash, downwash, lower accent, galley, lavatory and even cup holders. It has preset mood lighting integrated in both app and manual controls and allows for customizable configurations.”
And on the software side of innovation, Elliott has also created an app and web-based portal — Elliott Connect — that allows customers to manage their project while their aircraft is in work.
“Customers can approve squawks, share photos and send communication with their project managers. This has been a very helpful communications tool, especially when a customer is trying to remotely manage a major airframe inspection, large avionics retrofit or a complete paint and interior event,” Sahr explained.
Meeting the needs of their customers has been critical to the success of Elliott since their earliest beginnings and continuing to meet those needs are what Sahr credits to the company’s continued growth.
“One of the things that we’ve done consistently is put a lot of focus on customers. Annually, we have a customer advisory board for getting customer feedback. We also ensure that we drive high customer satisfaction scores on our surveys. We really look closely at their feedback and work with customers to find out how we could improve,” Sahr said.
With eyes towards the future, Elliott is looking to continue and grow the company. At the end of January, Elliott reached a partnership agreement with investment group Summit Park, a private investment firm, who took majority interest of Elliott Aviation on January 31, 2020. “The partnership opens the door for Elliott’s growth plans,” noted Sahr.
“The situation with COVID-19 has been challenging, not just for us, not just for the industry, but for the world. The health and safety of our employees is our number one priority and we have made some significant operational changes to mitigate any possible transmission of the virus. We practice social distancing; we limit team sizes; we clean and disinfect aircraft and workstations; we take extreme measures to do what we can for everyone’s safety. However, after we all get through this challenge, we are definitely looking to continue to grow the business. One of the key things we’re looking to do is expand our geographic footprint. We believe our brand is strong and would be well served to be in some of the other geographic regions in the United States. We‘re looking hard at that opportunity right now,” Sahr said.
“I think that there are a lot of opportunities for independent MROs like Elliot Aviation to provide great service and great quality to customers. There is definitely a re-leveling of the amount of business out there. For many facilities, it is going to be a challenge in the coming months, and maybe years. But I think that business aviation will have a strong rebound,” Sahr described. “Our interior and paint business remains strong. There’s tremendous opportunity out there for aftermarket aircraft modification for paint and interior. The amount of out of warranty aircraft that are still in service has also grown, which represents tremendous opportunity for independent MROs like Elliott.”
