What $10 Billion for an FBO Chain Says About the Toll Road Beneath Private Aviation

When a private jet lands at a general aviation airport, the first person it sees is an employee of a Fixed Base Operator. The FBO marshals the aircraft to a gate, fuels it, stores it in a hangar, provides catering, handles customs, and runs the concierge desk. Without the FBO, the plane sits on the ramp.

On August 27, 2026, Apollo Global Management acquired a controlling stake in Atlantic Aviation from KKR, valuing the FBO chain at nearly $10 billion. KKR retains a minority stake and reinvested additional capital alongside Singapore's GIC. The company's value has more than doubled since KKR bought Atlantic five years earlier for roughly $4.5 billion.

The number that matters is not the $10 billion headline. It's the gap between that price and the underlying cash flow Atlantic actually generates — and whether the FBO business, which sits quietly beneath the more glamorous private jets, earns its premium.

How FBOs Make Money

FBOs are a hybrid of fuel distribution, real estate, and aviation logistics. The FAA defines them as entities that provide aeronautical services at airports. In practice, they operate under long-term airport concession agreements — leases, not owned land — and generate revenue across several streams.

Fuel accounts for 50 to 70 percent of FBO revenue. FBOs buy Jet-A fuel wholesale at roughly $3 to $5 per gallon and sell at a markup of about $2 to $4. A typical mid-size jet burns 200 to 400 gallons on a fuel stop, generating $400 to $1,600 in gross margin per visit. Volume drives the top line, but the margin per gallon — set by vendor contracts, loyalty agreements, and airport flowage rights — determines whether the fuel business is actually profitable.

The higher-margin business sits in hangar storage. Hangars at major airports have finite square footage and long waitlists; 71 percent of general aviation airports report hangar shortages. Once a hangar is built, the recurring lease revenue carries relatively low operating cost. Adding a single additional mid-size jet per week at an FBO, across fuel, ramp fees, and ancillary services, produces roughly $124,800 in annual revenue.

Line services — marshaling, towing, de-icing, lavatory servicing, ground power — and passenger concierge — crew cars, catering, hotel bookings, lounge access — complete the mix. Maintenance and on-site repair stations add further revenue at locations that support them.

The economics matter because they determine what multiple an FBO should trade at. Private equity buyers and industry observers typically value FBOs at 6 to 10 times EBITDA, with the specific multiple depending on lease length, hangar occupancy, and service mix. A 30-year airport concession is a bankable asset. A five-year lease with no renewal is not.

The KKR to Apollo Jump

KKR acquired Atlantic Aviation from Macquarie Infrastructure in 2021 for $4.475 billion in total enterprise value — an equity value of about $3.5 billion after assumed debt. At the time, the deal implied a multiple of roughly 16.2 times Atlantic's 2019 EBITDA, which was already premium pricing for an FBO network.

Since then, Atlantic has expanded aggressively. The most notable addition was a merger with Ross Aviation announced in 2021 and closed in 2022, followed by continued acquisitions and organic growth, taking the company to over 105 locations across the United States and the Caribbean. It opened its 106th location in September 2025 and acquired an FBO in Sint Maarten in December 2025.

The $10 billion exit valuation — more than double KKR's entry — reflects both the growth Atlantic has achieved and the structural expansion of the private aviation market during the same period. Global private jet flights reached 3.88 million in 2025, a 4.6 percent increase over 2024 and 34 percent above pre-pandemic levels in 2019. The number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals grew from under 300,000 to over 520,000 between 2019 and 2025. First-half 2026 global business jet departures rose another 4 percent year over year, to 1.95 million.

More importantly, the FBO business benefits from two structural constraints that fuel demand without increasing supply. Airport concessions are long-term and finite — you cannot simply open a new FBO at a busy airport. The two dominant chains in the U.S., Atlantic Aviation and Signature Flight Support (owned by Blackstone, GIP, and Cascade Investment), operate a de facto duopoly at many locations. Apollo partner David Cohen called Atlantic's network an "irreplicable infrastructure footprint".

The Multiple Problem

A $10 billion enterprise value for Atlantic implies what multiple on EBITDA? Atlantic does not publish financial statements — it is privately held. The last publicly available reference point is the 2019 EBITDA embedded in Macquarie's filings, on which the 2021 deal priced at roughly 16 times. Even assuming Atlantic's EBITDA has grown substantially over five years of expansion and market recovery, the math is constraining.

If EBITDA grew aggressively over the period — say 50 to 60 percent, driven by the Ross Aviation merger, post-pandemic demand recovery, and organic volume growth — the $10 billion enterprise value would still imply a multiple well above the traditional 6-to-10x range for FBOs. It would suggest a price at the absolute top of the scale, justified only if the buyer believes EBITDA will continue growing and the business deserves sustained infrastructure-class multiples.

That is the central question. Apollo is one of the largest infrastructure investors in the world, with approximately $1.05 trillion in assets under management as of June 2026, and has originated more than $155 billion in infrastructure transactions over five years. It is not making this bet casually. But infrastructure investors are paid to find durable cash flows at reasonable entry prices, and a $10 billion tag for a privately held FBO chain raises the question of whether the growth story is now fully priced in.

KKR's decision to retain a significant minority stake and reinvest additional capital signals continued conviction in the platform. But it also means KKR still has skin in the game — the structure is as much about risk-sharing between two sponsors who both believe in the long-term demand as it is about a clean exit.

The Toll Road and the Traffic

This deal is not directly actionable for a retail investor. Atlantic Aviation is privately held, and the transaction is a private equity-to-private equity transfer between two firms that trade on public exchanges only for their fee and carried interest. But the deal carries implications worth understanding.

It sets a market benchmark. FBO assets at this scale are now valued in the $10 billion range. If the sector consolidates further — as it appears to, with Bain & Company entering the FBO space earlier this year — future acquisition prices for smaller operators will be anchored to this deal. Any company with exposure to aviation ground infrastructure will face valuation comparisons to Atlantic's implied multiple.

It also highlights the gap between the glamorous top layer of private aviation — the jets, the fractional programs, the charter operators — and the less visible infrastructure beneath. The fractional and charter operators have seen real failures: Jet It, Verijet, Volato, AeroVanti, and Wheels Up's near-collapse. Aircraft manufacturers face supply chain constraints and softening pre-owned prices. But the FBOs — the fuel trucks and hangars — generate revenue regardless of whether the aircraft above them is owned, chartered, or fractional. The FBO is the toll road on which all private flights must pass.

The risk is straightforward. If private aviation flight activity contracts — from a recession, a regulatory shift, or a structural decline in demand for private travel — the FBO revenue base shrinks. Fuel volume drops, hangar occupancy may soften, and the premium multiple compresses. The business is counter-cyclical only in the sense that wealthy individuals and corporations were the last to cut discretionary spending during the last downturn. There is no guarantee they will be last this time.

The valuation gap — between the $10 billion price and the underlying cash flow Atlantic can sustain through a full cycle — is what determines whether this is a durable infrastructure investment or a peak-cycle premium. For the investor watching this space, the Atlantic deal is a data point: it tells you how much institutional capital believes the toll road beneath private aviation is worth, and at what price point the growth story is considered fully told.