In September 2024, Joe Chauklin came to us with his idea. He wanted to build a charter company around his clients’ schedules, not the other way around.
Almost two years later, Freedom Air has quadrupled its fleet and grown from West Coast operations to charter across the US and the Caribbean. We’ve been their marketing partner since day one and have been part of every stage of that growth.
So when they told us they’d bought a Pilatus PC-12, we couldn’t have been happier for them. It meant more capacity, more passengers and more routes. For Freedom Air’s West Coast clients, that’s more ways to get where they need to go. Our job was making sure the right people heard about it and understood why it mattered.
Starting with the goal
The PC-12 seats up to nine passengers, cruises at up to 290 knots, and has a range of up to 1,765 nautical miles. It also has room for more luggage and gear. That makes it the right aircraft for trips Freedom Air couldn’t easily take on before: larger groups travelling together, family trips with a full load of bags, ski and golf weekends, and destinations where runway length used to limit their options.
For Freedom Air, the goal was to grow their West Coast charter business by offering a larger cabin alongside their existing fleet of Epic Aircraft. That gave the campaign two jobs. First, make sure the market knew Freedom Air now had a bigger aircraft on the West Coast. Second, turn that awareness into charter inquiries.
That shaped everything that followed. Instead of leading with the aircraft, we led with the trips it makes possible, and every channel had a specific role in getting there.
Why each piece mattered
Press release and media outreach: Industry coverage tells clients, partners and brokers that Freedom Air is growing, and it carries more weight than anything a company says about itself. We wrote the release and the pitch and put together a media kit so outlets had what they needed in one place. Aviation International News (AIN) picked up the story.
Meta ads: Ads put the PC-12 in front of West Coast travellers who weren’t following Freedom Air yet and sent them straight to a charter inquiry. We built multiple creative variations so we could test which angle earned the click instead of guessing. The PC-12 ads earned a 9.5% click-through rate, the highest of any campaign we’ve run for Freedom Air.
Social: Social is where Freedom Air’s existing audience sees the brand grow. We built a reel and a photo carousel for Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn, with each version written for the platform instead of one caption reworded three times. The announcement became Freedom Air’s most-liked Instagram post of the quarter.
Newsletter: Past clients are the people most likely to book again, so the newsletter spoke to them directly. We built it to carry the same message and timing as everything else going out that week.
Website: Every ad, post and article sends people back to Freedom Air’s website, so it had to be ready before anything went live. We updated the site so the fleet information and messaging matched what people saw on social and in the release.
What it means for Freedom Air
A new aircraft only grows a business if people know it’s available and understand what it can do for them. The PC-12 lets Freedom Air say yes to trips they would have passed on before, and the campaign made sure the market heard that clearly.
The early signs are strong: industry coverage in AIN, the highest ad click-through rate in Freedom Air’s account and their most-liked Instagram post of the quarter. More importantly, it positions Freedom Air as an operator that can handle a wider range of trips on the West Coast, which is what will keep clients coming back.
What’s next
Working with Freedom Air from their first aircraft to their newest has been one of the most rewarding parts of our work at Avian Creative. The PC-12 won’t be their last addition. They keep finding new ways to grow and we’re excited to be part of what comes next.
Feature Photo by Jeremie Lu Photography