Stratos Jet Charters offers unique franchise opportunities, enabling independent operators to establish their own professional charter agency. Founder and President Joel Thomas explains how
Every one of the industry’s many charter brokers attempts to define its own unique selling point in a crowded market place. At Florida-based Stratos Jet Charters, finding a USP is not difficult, since Founder and President Joel Thomas has built the company into a private jet charter franchise, providing technological, operational and safety infrastructure that empowers a growing network of independently owned charter agencies. Each franchisee has complete access to the proprietary Stratos Flight Management System (FMS), enabling small, even single-person outfits to trade entirely professionally and remotely with the full backing of an established brokerage.
The story of Stratos Jets is one that Thomas tells with enthusiasm and humility. He is passionate about aviation but says his primary motivation for founding the business in 2007 and building it since has been the glorification of God. An inspirational claim seldom made among industry leaders, it seems to be one that translates into an innate fairness and desire to see people provided with opportunities through which they might succeed.
He begins: “I believe we are truly unique in the industry. I started out with a mission to provide an air charter service that educates clients and helps them make an informed buying decision. It’s driven me for almost 20 years and we’ve really achieved it. In the charter market, especially in the US, there is a lot of variance in the degree of oversight, infrastructure and regulatory requirements for a commercial carrier. You’ll have a ‘basic’ [Part] 135, a ‘full standard’ 135, a Ten Or More 135, a Ten Or More 135 with worldwide operations, and then there are SMS [safety management system] programmes that are currently optional, for instance. It means the forward thinking about safety and operational excellence varies widely.”
As an example of weak oversight, Thomas says that the aircraft operator should be listed on all US charter quotes but often is not. A lack of enforcement means brokers are seldom called out on the omission. Stratos always identifies the operator and completes a full analysis of the operator’s safety and regulatory background, and the route, including a look at airport requirements. This means, he says, that clients occasionally question why a Stratos quote for the same aircraft type on an identical trip is higher than that of other brokers. It is a question he is happy with since he is confident that the Stratos quote is always for the safest, most qualified operator available for the flight.
Thomas is transparent about Stratos’ transactions with its clients. “Of course, a customer is free to go ahead and save a few thousand dollars with an operator that has no SMS, it’s their choice, but they won’t do it through us. That’s been our foundation goal, to help customers understand the differences between air carriers, including the aircraft themselves,” he says.
“Most brokers talk about the thousands of jets they can access, and Stratos can too, but I’m most proud that 90% of our revenue was driven through fewer than 35 air carriers last year. That provides a depth of relationship with the carrier and lots of opportunity to build a relationship with them and ensure we’re all working ethically.”
Stratos FMS
In 2019, Thomas launched Stratos FMS. Built inside Salesforce, it was a far more robust version of a system already in use. He explains: “Stratos FMS manages all aspects of the customer journey, from inbound enquiry, through aircraft sourcing, all the way through to wheels up and wheels down. It was costly to create, but I wanted to tie our due diligence programme to our sourcing. That means when our sales people are trying to find the best option, they’ll never present anything that doesn’t meet our standards of excellence.
“The platform we launched in 2019 included the end-to-end process, plus our customer portal, which we call the Flightdeck, and a vendor portal. Customers can log in and see instant real-time pricing over perhaps 450 aircraft by the end of 2025 and just under 1,000 by March 2026.
“I felt our value proposition as a company was greater even than that of the big industry players. The aim of my work is to glorify God and while I believed we were doing that, it was only on a small scale. The technology is our foundation, but we also have a team of flight coordinators who’ve organised thousands of flights and have deep expertise. So, in 2024, we decided to pivot, to launch a franchise model where we don’t sell charters anymore, we process them on behalf of franchised brokerages. I own Stratos Jets and the Joel Thomas Agency, which was the founding franchise.”
The second franchise, and the first beyond Thomas’ own, launched in June 2025. By late October 2025, there were 11, of which seven were already generating revenue. The franchise provides small brokers with access to the Stratos flight coordinator team and the FMS infrastructure and brings the credibility of association with an organisation that has almost 20 years’ experience in the charter industry behind it. On top of that, there is the automatic benefit of Stratos Jets’ multiple insurance policies and, since early November, AOG mechanical recovery coverage on every on-demand charter, which covers the extra costs of securing a replacement aircraft if a mechanical issue grounds the original jet before departure.
Enthused by the overall proposition, Thomas continues: “These brokerages have the infrastructure of a large, established, national firm, enabling them to deliver the same extremely high-quality customer experience that Stratos Jets is known for, but they own their own business, they can grow their own sales team, they can do whatever they need to do to grow their business. Our model is performance based and they can be as large or small as they want to be.
“We have a franchisee who’s an airline captain and the flying takes him away from his young children. He lives near a private airport amid a huge private aviation market, and he’s growing his business organically in between flying. Doing that without the franchise would incur all kinds of fixed expenses and there would be zero operational support. With us, because the model is performance based, they have no outflows until they start selling. We even sell performance-based finance to cover the franchise fee.
“As another example, our first outside franchisee already had 15 years’ experience in the business. He wanted to bring on volume fast but didn’t have the resources to grow his team quickly. With the franchise performance based, he was able to push as much business as he wanted through the Stratos infrastructure and support, without investing heavily in staff.”
The Allied Jet Agency
Thomas’ passion for and belief in the franchise scheme is deeply convincing, but what does it look like from the other side of the tech? Antonio Ferrara was the first outside franchisee, establishing The Allied Jet Agency as a result. “I’ve been in the industry a long time, so I was aware of what I was getting into. I have seven people working for me at The Allied Jet Agency and it’s working out well,” Ferrara said in late November 2025.
An advocate for neurodiversity in aviation, Ferrara believes strongly in giving people opportunities when they are the right fit from a personal standpoint, even if they do not fit a role’s typical profile. The Allied Jet Agency gives him the opportunity to do just that. “If I want to hire a veteran with no experience, I can. If I want to create a pathway to hiring neurodiverse people, I can do that too. I can give people opportunity and a competitive salary and still expand. And I get full trip support, the whole back office, without having to pay those salaries.”
Of course, Stratos Jets generates income from franchisees, but it seems the real benefits are for the franchisee, not Stratos. Thomas appears to have a genuine desire to help people into an industry he clearly loves, but is that genuinely good business? He believes it is. “Through them, we’re expanding our reach, growing our market share, while giving people opportunities to own something of their own and grow their own business. I couldn’t do that within the traditional brokerage model.
“We do make less money on each individual flight, but we’re doing more flights. But I’m not money motivated. I believe that if you do what’s right and make consistent, quality decisions over a long period of time, the money will take care of itself. Since Antonio came in in June, we have revenue flowing through seven agencies and multiple bookings coming in. I couldn’t have achieved that growth as just the Joel Thomas Agency inside Stratos Jets.
“And some of these franchisees are very experienced. I believe I’m pretty good at this, but Antonio, for example, has brought new information, insight and suggestions, as have most of the franchise owners, including a former charter customer who encouraged me to franchise the system back in 2023 and subsequently bought a franchise.”
Two aspects of Thomas’ character become extremely obvious quite quickly. He clearly derives great joy from the success of others, and he has a resolutely strong moral compass. Considering the latter, his franchisees must uphold the values so dear to Stratos Jets, but how does he ensure that? “The franchise agencies can only operate within Stratos FMS, which means the customer experience is guaranteed from an operational perspective. But the franchisee also develops personal relationships with customers and so we perform a background check on potential franchise owners and the people the agencies take on. By now I could have sold 60 or 70 franchises, but we are being very selective. We’ve also built a fully comprehensive training system that starts with the fundamentals of lift and goes all the way through to solving problems for charter customers – it’s the culmination of everything I’ve learned and all the data I’ve gathered.”
Considering how much he enjoys watching his franchise owners succeed, Thomas says there is more to his enthusiasm than joy alone. “I’m excited seeing the success and growth of others, but I also truly believe there is no other company that offers the same value proposition to the customer, is such a valuable partner to the air carrier or is creating longevity and stability as we do with the ten-year contracts we offer our franchise owners.”