A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Senior Editor

Curt Epstein

Sky Harbour is rapidly expanding its footprint in the U.S., delivering high-end, boutique private hangar space for aircraft owners at key airports across the country. Since <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2020-03-04/luxury-hangar-campus-planned-near-houston">launching in 2020</a>, the company has opened four locations, including in Houston, Nashville, Miami, and San Jose, with three more slated to open in Denver, Phoenix, and Dallas by early 2025. Each campus represents a significant investment, costing between $30 million and $50 million to build, and includes more than 100,000 sq ft of hangars staffed by a dedicated ground handling team available 24/7.
CEO Tal Keinan emphasized the company's commitment to reliability: “There’s no such thing as waiting—we will always be there on time,” he said.&nbsp;“It’s got to be bulletproof from end to end, and that means we need to control it. The fact that we can make a hard commitment to our residents says you can be as spontaneous as you want to be; those call-out times are just not a thing with us.”
Aside from the first location in Houston, all Sky Harbour campuses offer their own fueling services to tenants. In addition to private aircraft shelter, the hangars offer private entries to fully customizable office space depending on the individual needs or desires of the tenant. Some use the hangars simply as a base of operations for their flight department and aircraft, while others fully furnish the personal space for business offices or entertainment.
Presently, the company has more than 400,000 sq ft of space generating revenue, and that total will double in the first quarter of 2025 as locations come online in Denver (KAPA), Phoenix (KDVT), and Dallas (KADS).
It also expects to break ground imminently on Phase 2 of development of its Miami-Opa Locka campus, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2025, adding another 120,000 sq ft of turnkey hangar space into a sizzling Florida aviation real estate market.
Waiting for approval are another seven locations: Windsor Locks, Connecticut (KBDL); Poughkeepsie (KPOU) and Newburgh (KSWF) in New York; Chicago (KPWK); Orlando, Florida (KORL); Washington, D.C. (KIAD); and Salt Lake City (KSLC).
“We have the lands, and we are in the permitting process,” explained Keinan. “For us, once it's permitted, we’re in the ground.” He expects all those projects to reach completion in the 2027 timeframe, bringing the company to approximately 1.8 million sq ft of hangar space.
Even with all those developments in the works, Sky Harbour is not letting up on the accelerator. “Quite the opposite, we’re pushing down harder and I don’t think the pedal has reached the metal yet,” Keinan told AIN. “We’ve been giving guidance to the market of 50 airports. Internally, I’m talking about a lot more than that. There’s a big opportunity in front of us; there’s no reason to stop.”
The company has engineered its hangar design to meet the most rigorous standards, whether it is California seismic requirements, Florida wind, or Illinois snow loading. With dozens of hangars under construction or in planning, last year Sky Harbour decided to vertically integrate with the purchase of a building manufacturer in Weatherford, Texas. It expects the move will reduce its dependency on outside contractors and give it more control over the construction process, as well as offer economies of scale.
As of this summer, the new subsidiary had completed all of its contractual obligations to other customers and is fully engaged in the hangar-making business. “We spent millions of dollars in retooling the factory so it’s optimized to do one thing and one thing only, and that’s building Sky Harbour hangars,” Keinan said. “There’s no setup time between projects, it’s all exactly the same thing, so our welders are experts now in exactly the Sky Harbour weld on each piece.”
With the tempo of locations expected to increase, the factory will be increasing to a three-shift workday to meet demand.
“We’re spending a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of human resources right now on refining a service offering that is absolutely unique to us,” said Keinan. “It’s not just measured in the time to wheels up, but it’s also specific offerings that you just can’t offer [customers] if you are not configured like this.”
He plans to expand the company’s portfolio beyond aviation support, rolling out products in other areas that appeal to its upscale clientele.

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