Advanced Aviation Team brokers campaign charters for 2026 midterm candidates, from regional jets to airliners

Washington, DC-based Advanced Aviation Team (AAT) is one of the brokers serving political campaign travel in the 2026 midterm cycle. Founded in 2015 by CEO Gregg Brunson-Pitts, the firm arranges VIP travel for wealthy families, celebrities and corporate executives, with a specialty in campaign travel, and describes itself as nonpartisan. Tuesday's ballot carries all 435 House seats, 35 Senate seats (including two special elections), 36 governorships, three territorial governorships, numerous state offices and thousands of state legislative seats.

AAT manages scheduling, crew sourcing, aircraft branding, security coordination and itinerary changes, and handles hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts per election cycle. Federal Election Commission filings show roughly $58,000 from Sen. Susan Collins' leadership PAC and $66,000 from Rep. Hakeem Jeffries' campaign committee for 2026 travel, along with payments from the campaigns of Sen. Tom Cotton and Sen. Jim Justice. In 2024 the firm worked with Doug Emhoff and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and past clients include Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Bernie Sanders.

AAT is a broker with access to contracted aircraft, unlike operators or fractional providers such as NetJets or Flexjet. It can source small private jets or customize an airliner for groups of 100 or more. Examples cited include Emhoff on a Bombardier CRJ-200, Walz on a Boeing 757 in 2024, and Biden on a Boeing 737 in 2020. Aircraft may be modified, from seat layouts to decals or full repaints in campaign liveries.

Brunson-Pitts ran the White House Travel Office for eight years under President George W. Bush. Company president Peter Newell, formerly director of the White House travel office under President Barack Obama, joined in March, and vice president Jonathan Tasler organized the McDonnell Douglas MD-83 chartered by Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign.

Security is often the most complex variable. Sitting members of Congress sometimes receive Capitol Police protection, governors may use state details, most first-time House or Senate candidates hire private security, and a smaller group receives Secret Service protection. That mix can affect airport choice and aircraft parking, and operators are chosen from a pool familiar with armed details.

Costs can reach millions of dollars over a campaign season. The 2020 Biden campaign spent about $2.2 million on private charters, and Forbes estimated JD Vance's 2024 campaign Boeing 737, which AAT did not charter, at around $30,000 an hour. Sanders' "Fighting Oligarchy" tour across 25 US cities cost more than $221,000 in flights, which he defended as necessary given the rally schedule. The press and Secret Service typically pay for their own seats, and smaller campaigns sometimes fly commercially, including for public perception.

Campaign charter is a brokered, project-style business rather than a fleet-ownership one. The value sits in assembling aircraft, crews and security-cleared operators on short notice, then adapting the cabin or exterior to a candidate's brand. That favors brokers with deep government-travel experience, which is the background AAT's leadership brings, and it ties demand tightly to the election calendar.

The segment also shows how widely the aircraft range runs: a CRJ-200 for a small party, a 757 or 737 for a traveling press-and-staff group of 100 or more. Security requirements shape which operators qualify and which airports work, so a broker's vetted pool is effectively part of the product. Spending disclosed through FEC filings makes this one of the few charter niches where client payments become public record.

The next concrete data point is the filing record after Tuesday's vote, which will show how much 2026 campaign committees ultimately paid for air travel.