For aviation company founder, basics helped business take off

Tyler Holt had an idea, and he flew with it. In 2015, he founded AvSky Corp., an aircraft brokerage firm, initially based out of his bedroom in Englewood. Now, the company has a staff of about a dozen employees, recently opened a new office in Wellen Park, did about about $8 million in revenue in 2025 and handled 52 transactions in the last year. An average transaction, Holt estimates, is about $5 million.

"We have a $19 million plane under contract right now,” Holt adds.

Photo by Mark Wemple

Holt learned the trade when he was 20 years old and answered an ad in the paper put out by an airplane broker near Venice looking for someone to help sell planes over the phone. He started that job at $8 an hour, and did it for four years. 

“I knew that I wasn't getting paid the same as the other older guys, and I was doing the same work,” Holt says. "I also just wanted a little bit of control over my destiny.”

So at 24 years old, he decided to go into business for himself selling airplanes, with AvSky. Holt had $300,000 saved up that he says he was using as a cushion.

About 10 months later, “I had burned through half of my life savings,” Holt recalls. “The scarier part was … not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.”

To turn things around, he says, he went back to basics.

“Instead of trying to run a company, I just tried to sell,” Holt says. “I had been successful as a salesperson before. I got on the phones and started calling people.”

He closed his first deal, followed by a second. “And that’s where I sort of found my footing,” Holt says.

Next, he hired one of his best friends, Ryan Brnovich, as vice president, who is now a partner in AvSky. The company has handled an increasing number of transactions each year and in 2024 also launched charter flight business AvSky Charters under the AvSky umbrella.

Holt says he is looking forward to growing the charter business and also “flipping” planes — that is buying and then reselling them rather than just brokering deals.

His wife, Renee, is his mentor, and he says she has been supportive throughout the AvSky journey.

“I find myself more these days thinking twice before jumping to a conclusion or rushing into something,” Holt says. “I’ve kind of absorbed that from her…She has a very measured approach.”