Flexjet Acquires The Jet Business, Names Founder Steve Varsano as President

Flexjet has acquired The Jet Business, the London-based aircraft brokerage founded by Steve Varsano, who has 2.5 million followers on TikTok and 392,000 on Instagram. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Varsano, who founded The Jet Business and opened its London showroom in 2012, will become president of Flexjet. In that role he will be responsible for sourcing and disposing of aircraft for Flexjet, as well as product innovation and international growth. Flexjet's existing FXSolutions aircraft brokerage will be folded into The Jet Business brand, and customers will gain access to a new service called Flexjet Solutions, offering operational support, pre-purchase inspections, maintenance infrastructure, aircraft-on-ground response and aircraft management from within the broader Flexjet organisation.

Varsano said, "This is the right time to take The Jet Business into a new era within the Flexjet ecosystem," adding, "Having spent 15 years building this business into a trusted source of advisory and research expertise — amplified by social media and in-person engagement — I am excited to see what we can now achieve." Kenn Ricci, chair of Flexjet, said Varsano and The Jet Business "truly check all the boxes" in terms of competitive advantage and passion for aviation.

Varsano graduated from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University and began selling aircraft in the early 1980s. After a period in private equity he returned to the business jet market in 2011. His most-watched social media video has been viewed more than 35 million times. Flexjet already operates a European headquarters in Mayfair, a short walk from The Jet Business's London showroom, and expects to open a new private jet terminal at London Farnborough Airport in time for the Farnborough Airshow in July.

This deal belongs to a broader move by fractional and management operators to pull brokerage, maintenance and support services under one roof rather than leaving pre-owned aircraft sales to standalone firms. Folding FXSolutions into The Jet Business brand suggests Flexjet is betting on Varsano's name recognition and reach — built over 15 years and amplified by tens of millions of social media views — to draw buyers into its wider ecosystem of pre-purchase inspections, aircraft-on-ground response and management services.

How that works in practice will depend on whether Flexjet Solutions can convert brokerage customers into recurring management or fractional relationships, since the value of combining sourcing, disposal and aftercare lies in cross-selling across those lines rather than in the brokerage transaction alone. The proximity of Flexjet's Mayfair office to The Jet Business's London showroom, and the coming Farnborough terminal, points to a concentration of activity in the London market specifically.

What happens with the undisclosed financial terms, and how quickly Varsano's sourcing and disposal mandate expands beyond brokerage into product innovation, will be the clearest signals of how integrated the two businesses actually become.