For Desert Jet, this past desert season was not just busy. It was clarifying.
At a time when some corners of the regional tourism economy were navigating mixed signals, including softer international travel patterns and uneven hotel performance, the private aviation company based at Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport says it experienced its strongest season yet.
“We were up across the board here at Desert Jet,” said Jared Fox, the company’s CEO. “From a Thermal airport and Desert Jet standpoint, it was the best season that we’ve had.”
That statement is important not only because Desert Jet serves a high-end segment of the travel market, but also because its growth is increasingly tied to the broader economic story of Greater Palm Springs. Private aviation brings seasonal residents, festivalgoers, second-home owners, investors, executives, aircraft crews and high-spending visitors directly into the eastern Coachella Valley.
“We see ourselves as the gateway to the Coachella Valley,” Fox said. “So much so that we have trademarked the tagline, ‘Gateway to the Coachella Valley.’ We’re the very first thing that they see when they arrive, and we’re the last thing they see when they leave. We take that opportunity and responsibility very seriously.”
A Season That Pointed Higher
Desert Jet’s view of the 2025-26 season was unusually strong.
Fox said the company saw more aircraft visits, longer stays and rising interest in the eastern side of the Coachella Valley. Before the pandemic, he said, many visitors would arrive Friday or Saturday and depart Sunday or Monday. That pattern has shifted.
“People are staying longer,” Fox said. “They come in on Thursdays and leave on Tuesdays.”
Longer stays translate into more restaurant visits, hotel room nights, rental car activity, private club use, entertainment spending and potential long-term investment. It also reinforces the role of Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport as a growing aviation gateway for La Quinta, Indio, Indian Wells, Palm Desert and the broader eastern valley.
Fox said the region’s appeal is being shaped by a broader mix of experiences: major festivals, The American Express golf tournament, equestrian activity at Desert International Horse Park, Acrisure Arena events, the BNP Paribas tennis tournament and others.
That broader regional appeal has helped Desert Jet build momentum.
“We believe that Desert Jet is doing a good part of drawing those people to the eastern side of the Coachella Valley,” Fox said. “Obviously, there are so many other things that they’re coming to see and to do here now.”
Service as the Differentiator
At its core, Desert Jet’s strategy is simple: make the private aviation experience feel less transactional and more personal.
That means more than fueling and providing maintenance services for aircraft, parking planes and moving passengers through a terminal. Desert Jet has built its brand around service, hospitality, local connection and experience design. During peak events, especially festival season, the company turns its facility into more of a high-end arrival lounge than a traditional fixed-base operator (FBO).
Chris Little, Desert Jet’s chief marketing officer, said the company has intentionally expanded that part of the experience each year.
“Each year we make it bigger and better,” Little said. “This past year, we created a beautiful outdoor lounge and partnered with a curated mix of luxury brands and exceptional local businesses to welcome guests as they stepped off the aircraft. We wanted visitors to immediately experience the energy, hospitality and unique character of the Coachella Valley, creating a memorable first impression from the moment they arrived. ”
Music festival artists, executives and guests all receive the customary five-star Desert Jet personal service and welcome to the desert.
The company brought in local restaurants, live music, DJs and products and amenities designed to meet its clientele’s expectations. Guests arriving for Coachella, Stagecoach and other major events were greeted with cold water, branded items, tantalizing bites, curated products and an invitation to spend time at the Desert Jet lounge before heading to their destination.
Fox described it as an extension of the events themselves.
“Rather than just serving the basics as an FBO, where people get on and off airplanes and then leave, we set it up as a place they really want to be,” Fox said. “It turns into an extension of the festivals during April.”
That approach is not typical in the FBO business, where the experience can often be efficient but understated. Fox said Desert Jet deliberately tries to match the expectations guests will encounter at elite clubs, luxury homes, private events and major destination experiences once they leave the airport.
“We know where our guests are headed,” Fox said. “They’re headed to the festivals, they’re headed to the Madison Club, or Ladera Golf Club, the Quarry, and we know the types of activities that they’re seeing there. We look at that as our requirement to do the same.”
Bringing the Community Onto the Desert Jet Ramp
Desert Jet’s arrival experience is also designed to connect visitors to the local economy.
Little said part of the reason for bringing local restaurants and businesses into its activations is to help guests discover where to eat, shop and spend time while they are in the valley. The company also publishes Desert Jet magazine, which highlights businesses and attractions across the region.
“We also bring the community along with us,” Little said. “Every visitor who lands at Desert Jet Center has the potential to support businesses throughout the valley. The more people we draw here, the more they’re out enjoying the desert and all it has to offer. ”
That philosophy appears in small ways that can have a meaningful economic impact. Fox said Desert Jet prepares restaurant guides for pilots and crews to encourage them to eat at independent local restaurants rather than defaulting to national chains. The company connects visitors and pilots with local experiences, from Firebirds games to BMW Performance Center activities to golf.
Pilots enjoy the wide range of amenities available to them at Desert Jet. And they love the local restaurant recommendations too.
“When the aircraft come in, that’s bringing hotel stays, rental car stays,” Fox said. “We put together a restaurant guide, so when the pilots, even if they’re only here for a couple of hours, they’re going and eating at a local restaurant instead of running to the chains.”
Fox said the company sees itself as an extension of the community, not just a facility on airport property.
“We’re not just simply an FBO that sits here, plane comes in, plane leaves,” Fox said. “We’re an extension of the community.”
One story illustrates the point. Fox recalled a real estate developer from Seattle who had not visited the area in 20 years and arrived with a dated impression of the desert. After Desert Jet helped point him toward things to do and places to experience, Fox saw him again before departure.
“He said, ‘Oh my goodness, I can’t believe how much this place has changed, how much there is to do,’” Fox said. “He said, ‘I will be coming back here. I’m thinking I’m going to buy a house down here.’”
For Fox, that is the economic development story behind the customer service strategy. A visitor who might have passed through quickly instead becomes a repeat visitor, a second-home buyer or an investor.
Growth Backed by Demand
The customer service push is not just a branding exercise. It is tied directly to Desert Jet’s expansion.
The company is moving ahead with a major campus expansion at Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport after securing a long-term land lease for new property development. Fox said Desert Jet plans to begin this summer by creating about 3.5 acres of additional ramp parking at the front of its facility, a project expected to roughly double its aircraft parking area.
The ramp work is expected to be completed around September this year. After that, the company plans to move into design and permitting for two new 27,000-square-foot hangars next to its existing facility.
The new hangars would significantly expand Desert Jet’s physical capacity and complete what Fox has described as the company’s Thermal campus.
“We don’t build empty hangars,” Fox said. “The expansion that we are doing is based exclusively on the demand that we have, the capacity that we get to on occasion during peak season, and the demand of our clientele.”
The company currently operates from a roughly 32,500-square-foot executive facility that includes its terminal and hangar space. With the planned expansion, Desert Jet expects to more than double its ground lease footprint and substantially increase its hangar capacity.
Fox said 2027 may be possible for some portion of the new hangar facilities, but 2028 is the more realistic target for full completion.
Not Just Bigger, More Creative
Desert Jet’s expansion is not being planned as a conventional real estate addition. Fox and Little said the company intends to use the new space to expand the experiences, activations and community-oriented events it already hosts.
“The new facilities, the expansion that we’re doing, will allow us to do even more,” Fox said. “With additional facilities comes more opportunities to get creative and to find ways to have fun delivering a fantastic product to our clients.”
Little said the goal is to keep elevating the experience, not simply preserve the status quo.
“Every year we’ve elevated the experience,” she said. “We’re going to continue to do that because we never want to stand still. We want every interaction to leave a lasting impression and strengthen the connection that brings our guests back year after year .”
Fox said the company’s service model is based on consistency, transparency and treating people well.
“If you treat people right, if you meet them at their needs, and you consistently do that, you’re transparent, you deliver a good product, and at a fair value, your business is going to succeed,” Fox said.
Preparing for What Comes Next
Desert Jet is also looking beyond the normal desert event calendar.
Fox said the company is already considering opportunities tied to the 2026 FIFA World Cup, including the possibility that aircraft connected to tournament travel may use Thermal for overflow parking, aircraft services or maintenance support if other host-market airports are constrained.
That kind of planning reflects the company’s broader approach. Desert Jet does not wait for demand to arrive. It looks for ways to position the airport and the valley within larger travel patterns.
“We start the outreach and look for additional ways,” Fox said. “How can we get out past our ramp and into the world around us in service, and then make those events more fun than they would be if we were not involved?”
The company also has a milestone coming. Little said Desert Jet will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year, giving the company another opportunity to recognize clients, employees and partners who have helped build the business.
“Next year it’s going to be our 20th anniversary,” Little said. “We’ve got some celebrating to do.”
Fox said the anniversary will be about more than the company itself.
“We never pass up an opportunity to celebrate, have some fun and to make it more than just Desert Jet and the employees,” Fox said. “We want to bring in all the guests that have helped make us successful.”
For now, the story is one of momentum: a record season, a growing campus, an increasingly polished service model and a company that is helping shape first impressions of the Coachella Valley for a valuable segment of the region’s visitor and investor economy.
Desert Jet’s message is not that it is becoming bigger for the sake of being bigger. It is that its growth is following demand, and that its differentiator will remain the same even as the facilities expand.
