Journey Aviation, Mountain Aviation and Pentastar Aviation have agreed to utilise Stellar Labs' quoting solution and enter their aircraft into the Stellar Marketplace. These companies join a growing list of operators who have signed onto the platform.

“We had been monitoring Stellar for some time and were impressed with the innovation and advancements made in both the Stellar Quoting application and the Stellar Marketplace,” says Journey Aviation CEO Fabian Bello. “Stellar worked hand-in-hand with us to ensure we had the features necessary to run our business. We're excited to conduct off-fleet sourcing transactions on the marketplace and have more powerful, streamlined processes.”

“Our goal with Journey Aviation, as with every partner, was to overcome operational bottlenecks and assist in sourcing off-fleet aircraft from other operators,” explains Stellar's founder and recently-appointed CEO Vicki Nakata. “We're thrilled to have achieved our goal and add Journey, Mountain and Pentastar Aviation to the list of operators already utilising Stellar's solutions.”

The Stellar Marketplace is an independent, business-to-business, online exchange for business aviation. Trusted partners come together to conduct off-fleet sourcing transactions. The easy-to-use interface allows buyers and sellers of charter flights to offer, search for, quote and book available aircraft using real-time pricing, availability and safety information. The results are unprecedented accuracy, efficiency, and reliability.

Powering the Stellar Marketplace is the Stellar Quoting application and its rules-based pricing engine. Advanced features such as QuickBooks and DocuSign integrations, custom documents and similar quote warnings enable charter operators of all sizes to provide better customer service, grow their business and better track results.

Vicki Nakata succeeds David Fox as CEO, who, after co-founding and seeing Stellar through six years of growth, will transition to the role of Stellar's chairman of the board. As chairman, Fox will focus on long-term strategic initiatives for the company.

“It has been an honour and a privilege to serve as the CEO of Stellar, and I am incredibly proud of everything our team has accomplished together,” says Fox. “Our success is founded upon our core values, foremost of which is making customers successful. I look forward to my new role as chairman of the board and am confident the Stellar team with Vicki leading the way will continue to take our success to the next level.”

Speaking on behalf of the board, Dean Donovan says: “We wish to recognise the outstanding role David Fox has played to get Stellar to this point. We thank him for his tireless effort and dedication to building the Stellar business as founder and CEO. We see him making a new level of contribution to the company in his new role as chairman.

“The best time to make a change is when things are going well. Stellar will play an important role enabling business aviation with technology. We are thrilled to have a leader with Vicki's experience in aviation, customer relationship development and business leadership take the helm at Stellar.”

Nakata adds: “Stellar is a truly special company. We're seeing significant momentum around the Stellar Marketplace with more and more operators and partners working with us to make business aviation simple, transparent and accessible. Our team's technical and industry experience, as well as our commitment to customers, uniquely position Stellar to be a leading technology solution provider in business aviation.”

Nakata joined Stellar in April 2018, as vice president of business development and customer success. She was named chief operating officer in August 2019 and has overseen product management and design, marketing, customer success, business development and strategic relationships.

Prior to joining Stellar, Nakata had over 15 years of experience growing online travel businesses, developing and implementing business strategies, launching products and creating strategic partnerships. She held senior executive positions at Hawaiian Airlines and Booking.com and was a principal in the airline practice at Bain & Company.

Finally, Stellar Labs has entered into a strategic partnership with FL3XX to solve the operational and business challenges faced by charter operators, brokers and corporate flight departments. The partnership brings together the most complete aviation management solution and the most modern business-to-business charter exchange in the industry.

The partnership between Stellar and FL3XX will give the more than 50 operators on the FL3XX platform the ability to offer, search, quote and book truly available aircraft in the Stellar Marketplace using real-time pricing, feasibility checks, and safety data. As the exclusive provider of the FL3XX platform and connected services in North America, Stellar's more than 150 customers now have access to a complete aviation management platform with the high level of support they're used to. Stellar also brings its advanced pricing and quoting capabilities and Stellar Data Studio, a self-service data analysis product, to the partnership.