Flight School Spotlight: Premier Flight Center

Gary Ciriello, the owner and founder of Premier Flight Center in Hartford, Connecticut, knows all this and doesn’t seem to care. Since opening the school 15 years ago, Ciriello has made community outreach a central tenant of his marketing strategy. “I wanted to get our name out there and show that we’re willing to help the community and educate people about flying,” he said.

Almost from the beginning, school groups began calling. Teachers wanted to expose their students to aviation and help bring science to life, and Ciriello and his team were happy to oblige. He said that groups would come in about once a month.

The same thing occurred with Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. Adult leaders regularly brought in groups to learn a bit about flying and play in the airplanes. From the beginning Ciriello could tell the kids were excited on the day of the visit, but probably moved onto the next thing soon after leaving. After all, they were young and not yet ready to sign up for training. But he saw the parent chaperones as legitimate prospects.

Unfortunately, conversions didn’t often come to fruition. “I feel like it didn’t work,” he said. Although it’s impossible to know because precise tracking doesn’t exist, Ciriello is pretty sure the majority of his clients come from online sources. People search for schools in the local area or look for recommendations online.

Despite that, the school has continued to invest in community outreach. Before the pandemic Premier had a program with the local Angel Flight organization. Ciriello would pitch in for the airplane and part of the instructor’s time in order to move medical patients around the Northeast. The goal wasn’t to generate direct leads so much as it was to show a commitment to the community. Flights would be posted on the school’s social media pages as a way to spread the story of good will. “People can see we are more than just flight training. We care about people,” he said.

Ciriello will never know what downstream dividends a program like that brings. By promoting the school as a nice and welcoming environment, he hopes prospective clients get the idea they will be treated well, and they feel good about investing their money into that type of business.

Between sponsoring days to get more women into aviation and helping to support EAA’s scholarship program, the school is also trying to build up the next generation of pilots, while appealing to the current generation. It’s a strategy that isn’t always lucrative, but at least for Ciriello, it’s the right thing to do.