![Long-running Dominion Aviation sold to private equity-backed firm 1 Mike Mickel Cropped](https://richmondbizsense.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Mike-Mickel-Cropped-700x394.jpg)
Dominion Aviation founder Mike Mickel recently sold his company to Vantage Aviation. (Courtesy Dominion)
Mike Mickel says he’s had plenty of suitors come calling over the years wanting to buy his long-running Chesterfield-based company Dominion Aviation.
Time after time he turned the offers away, never quite ready to relinquish the reins of the private jet management, charter and service business he started as a college student four decades ago.
But late last year he finally changed his tune, thanks to a yearslong courting by a fellow aviator and a nudge from his wife.
“I wasn’t looking to sell,” said Mickel, 63. “But my wife Margaret said, ‘Can you stop saying you’re not interested and at least listen to what they have to say before you say no?”
In November, Mickel sold Dominion Aviation to Indiana-based Vantage Aviation, an upstart private equity-backed venture run by Ryan Maxfield.
The deal gave Vantage full ownership of Dominion, which operates as the lone fixed-base operator, or FBO, at the Chesterfield County Airport. It provides a full range of services to planes coming in and out of the small airfield, including fueling, maintenance, storage, chartering, hiring of pilots and flight training.
Vantage retained Dominion’s 90 employees, including Mickel, who will continue on with the company for at least three years.
The acquisition is a first for Vantage, which plans to use its backing from New York-based Jadian Capital to purchase full-service FBOs like Dominion and also build others from scratch. Maxfield said the firm is doing the latter near Aspen, Colorado, where it’s constructing a $40 million FBO facility. He said the company has two other acquisitions in the works in the Midwest and on the East Coast, with a plan to add 2-3 new FBOs to its portfolio a year.
Vantage has also already put its money to work in Chesterfield with the purchase of new fuel trucks and ground service equipment for Dominion, and the installation of new technology for procurement and charter operations.
There’s also room for growth on the grounds of the Chesterfield airport with new hangars to make room for more planes, which Mickel and Maxfield said are a possibility.
“It takes Dominion to the next level,” Mickel said.
Maxfield, who lives in Indianapolis, said he became familiar with Mickel and Dominion from flying himself in and out of Chesterfield over the last decade or so visiting friends.
“I always used to joke with (Mickel) and say, ‘One day I’m going to come in and buy this business,” Maxfield said. “It was a 10-year courtship to build trust.”
Maxfield was working elsewhere in the FBO world at the time, initially for a small operator in his hometown and later as a founder and owner of Jet Access Aviation, which owns about a dozen FBOs. Maxfield said he sold his ownership stake in that company in 2023, before starting Vantage.
Maxfield said he was attracted to how Mickel operates, both from a safety standpoint and how he manages the company’s clients – those who own the jets that are maintained by Dominion.
“Mike has built a business on being a strong fiduciary to his (aircraft) owners,” Maxfield said. “The business of aviation is a pretty complex one. What a lot of aircraft owners want is somebody they can trust. Mike was always so good at providing a one-stop shop to these people.”
Mickel said Dominion’s jet-owner clients include local business leaders, as well as public and private companies.
“You would recognize a lot of the names, but you’ll never get any of those names out of me,” he said.
When Maxfield made his approach for a deal with Mickel, “He said ‘OK, I’ll sell to you, but I’ve got more in the tank, so I want to stick around,’” Maxwell said of Mickel.
Mickel’s new role is to help Vantage expand its aircraft management division, which he said is his favorite part of the business.
“It’s helping people buy airplanes, finding the right one, and then overseeing the operations and making sure pilots are hired,” Mickel said. “And when a jet is not being used, we charter it out to the public.”
Vantage wants to grow that side of its business by taking on more private aircraft at FBOs across the country. Mickel said he’s up for it.
“I still want to work hard. I like making deals and I like growing things and expanding and I get participate in those without being bogged down in the day-to-day,” he said. “And I’ll do a little flying. I haven’t flown in a while. I just got recertified on one of our jets.”
Maxfield does a bit of flying himself.
He said he flew his first solo flight at age 16: “I flew my first plane before I drove a car.”
![Long-running Dominion Aviation sold to private equity-backed firm 3 chesterfieldairportterminal](https://richmondbizsense.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/chesterfieldairportterminal-700x525.jpg)
The airport’s terminal building houses Dominion Aviation’s offices and sits next door to where REA operated.
Now in his early 40s, Maxfield said there’s a generational shift afoot as FBO owners like Mickel are looking for exit strategies. That’s leading to consolidation opportunities that are attractive to private equity investors.
“There was this generation that came into these airports and kind of fell into these services because there was demand for it. For a lot of these single FBO, sole-source operators it’s time for the next generation to come in,” he said.
Maxfield said bigger industry players like Signature Aviation and Atlantic Aviation are more focused on FBOs in bigger markets. That leaves an opening for companies like Vantage at airports like the one in Chesterfield.
“We like those third-tier markets, the reliever airports,” he said. “We see the value that a Chesterfield airport brings. It doesn’t have to fight with air carrier traffic. It just provides such an easy ingress.”
For Mickel, the sale to Vantage is a not quite-final chapter in his aviation story that began when he was a kid.
“My father always wanted to be able to fly. He was injured at 18 in the Battle of the Bulge and it prevented him from flying. He talked my mom into flying when I was 7 years old. They had a small Cessna and I just kind of grew up around it,” Mickel said.
He flew through college, transferring from Hampden-Sydney to VCU in the early ’80s to work for Piedmont Aviation in Richmond.
Then, during his senior year in 1983, Piedmont was sold and a then-22-year-old Mickel decided to take off on his own. He got a loan, bought his first plane – a twin-engine Beechcraft Baron – and flew his first charter flight in January of 1984.
As he built the business over the years, Mickel said he’s seen the ebb and flow of waves of private equity interest in the aviation industry.
While he had always let those waves simply lap over him in the past, he decided to take the ride this time.
“About every 12 years it seems like private equity comes into the aviation FBO market. There’s a lot of that happening right now and I don’t want to be 74 years old the next time it comes around,” he said.
Mickel said he’s proud of having built the business up from that single small aircraft all those years ago.
“I kind of accomplished everything I set out to do,” he said. That includes recent accomplishments like last year obtaining ARGUS Platinum Elite status, the highest safety rating in the industry.
And while he got what he wanted out of the deal – money from the sale and the ability to continue working – he still doesn’t take the decision lightly.
“It’s a little bittersweet but it’s the right decision,” he said. “The number had to be there, but it really wasn’t about the number as much as it was about the continuation of our brand and the company I started 41 years ago.”
![Long-running Dominion Aviation sold to private equity-backed firm 1 Mike Mickel Cropped](https://richmondbizsense.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Mike-Mickel-Cropped-700x394.jpg)
Dominion Aviation founder Mike Mickel recently sold his company to Vantage Aviation. (Courtesy Dominion)
Mike Mickel says he’s had plenty of suitors come calling over the years wanting to buy his long-running Chesterfield-based company Dominion Aviation.
Time after time he turned the offers away, never quite ready to relinquish the reins of the private jet management, charter and service business he started as a college student four decades ago.
But late last year he finally changed his tune, thanks to a yearslong courting by a fellow aviator and a nudge from his wife.
“I wasn’t looking to sell,” said Mickel, 63. “But my wife Margaret said, ‘Can you stop saying you’re not interested and at least listen to what they have to say before you say no?”
In November, Mickel sold Dominion Aviation to Indiana-based Vantage Aviation, an upstart private equity-backed venture run by Ryan Maxfield.
The deal gave Vantage full ownership of Dominion, which operates as the lone fixed-base operator, or FBO, at the Chesterfield County Airport. It provides a full range of services to planes coming in and out of the small airfield, including fueling, maintenance, storage, chartering, hiring of pilots and flight training.
Vantage retained Dominion’s 90 employees, including Mickel, who will continue on with the company for at least three years.
The acquisition is a first for Vantage, which plans to use its backing from New York-based Jadian Capital to purchase full-service FBOs like Dominion and also build others from scratch. Maxfield said the firm is doing the latter near Aspen, Colorado, where it’s constructing a $40 million FBO facility. He said the company has two other acquisitions in the works in the Midwest and on the East Coast, with a plan to add 2-3 new FBOs to its portfolio a year.
Vantage has also already put its money to work in Chesterfield with the purchase of new fuel trucks and ground service equipment for Dominion, and the installation of new technology for procurement and charter operations.
There’s also room for growth on the grounds of the Chesterfield airport with new hangars to make room for more planes, which Mickel and Maxfield said are a possibility.
“It takes Dominion to the next level,” Mickel said.
Maxfield, who lives in Indianapolis, said he became familiar with Mickel and Dominion from flying himself in and out of Chesterfield over the last decade or so visiting friends.
“I always used to joke with (Mickel) and say, ‘One day I’m going to come in and buy this business,” Maxfield said. “It was a 10-year courtship to build trust.”
Maxfield was working elsewhere in the FBO world at the time, initially for a small operator in his hometown and later as a founder and owner of Jet Access Aviation, which owns about a dozen FBOs. Maxfield said he sold his ownership stake in that company in 2023, before starting Vantage.
Maxfield said he was attracted to how Mickel operates, both from a safety standpoint and how he manages the company’s clients – those who own the jets that are maintained by Dominion.
“Mike has built a business on being a strong fiduciary to his (aircraft) owners,” Maxfield said. “The business of aviation is a pretty complex one. What a lot of aircraft owners want is somebody they can trust. Mike was always so good at providing a one-stop shop to these people.”
Mickel said Dominion’s jet-owner clients include local business leaders, as well as public and private companies.
“You would recognize a lot of the names, but you’ll never get any of those names out of me,” he said.
When Maxfield made his approach for a deal with Mickel, “He said ‘OK, I’ll sell to you, but I’ve got more in the tank, so I want to stick around,’” Maxwell said of Mickel.
Mickel’s new role is to help Vantage expand its aircraft management division, which he said is his favorite part of the business.
“It’s helping people buy airplanes, finding the right one, and then overseeing the operations and making sure pilots are hired,” Mickel said. “And when a jet is not being used, we charter it out to the public.”
Vantage wants to grow that side of its business by taking on more private aircraft at FBOs across the country. Mickel said he’s up for it.
“I still want to work hard. I like making deals and I like growing things and expanding and I get participate in those without being bogged down in the day-to-day,” he said. “And I’ll do a little flying. I haven’t flown in a while. I just got recertified on one of our jets.”
Maxfield does a bit of flying himself.
He said he flew his first solo flight at age 16: “I flew my first plane before I drove a car.”
![Long-running Dominion Aviation sold to private equity-backed firm 3 chesterfieldairportterminal](https://richmondbizsense.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/chesterfieldairportterminal-700x525.jpg)
The airport’s terminal building houses Dominion Aviation’s offices and sits next door to where REA operated.
Now in his early 40s, Maxfield said there’s a generational shift afoot as FBO owners like Mickel are looking for exit strategies. That’s leading to consolidation opportunities that are attractive to private equity investors.
“There was this generation that came into these airports and kind of fell into these services because there was demand for it. For a lot of these single FBO, sole-source operators it’s time for the next generation to come in,” he said.
Maxfield said bigger industry players like Signature Aviation and Atlantic Aviation are more focused on FBOs in bigger markets. That leaves an opening for companies like Vantage at airports like the one in Chesterfield.
“We like those third-tier markets, the reliever airports,” he said. “We see the value that a Chesterfield airport brings. It doesn’t have to fight with air carrier traffic. It just provides such an easy ingress.”
For Mickel, the sale to Vantage is a not quite-final chapter in his aviation story that began when he was a kid.
“My father always wanted to be able to fly. He was injured at 18 in the Battle of the Bulge and it prevented him from flying. He talked my mom into flying when I was 7 years old. They had a small Cessna and I just kind of grew up around it,” Mickel said.
He flew through college, transferring from Hampden-Sydney to VCU in the early ’80s to work for Piedmont Aviation in Richmond.
Then, during his senior year in 1983, Piedmont was sold and a then-22-year-old Mickel decided to take off on his own. He got a loan, bought his first plane – a twin-engine Beechcraft Baron – and flew his first charter flight in January of 1984.
As he built the business over the years, Mickel said he’s seen the ebb and flow of waves of private equity interest in the aviation industry.
While he had always let those waves simply lap over him in the past, he decided to take the ride this time.
“About every 12 years it seems like private equity comes into the aviation FBO market. There’s a lot of that happening right now and I don’t want to be 74 years old the next time it comes around,” he said.
Mickel said he’s proud of having built the business up from that single small aircraft all those years ago.
“I kind of accomplished everything I set out to do,” he said. That includes recent accomplishments like last year obtaining ARGUS Platinum Elite status, the highest safety rating in the industry.
And while he got what he wanted out of the deal – money from the sale and the ability to continue working – he still doesn’t take the decision lightly.
“It’s a little bittersweet but it’s the right decision,” he said. “The number had to be there, but it really wasn’t about the number as much as it was about the continuation of our brand and the company I started 41 years ago.”
The Chesterfield Airport is a remarkable asset for the region, as is the Hanover Airport. I was surprised to learn that private airplane owners sometimes build their houses off of runways to provide hangar-like garages facing the runways for immediate access to the airways. It’s their life’s love, just as some sports car owners devote their spare time to private road racing clubs. Mickel found a way to combine his life’s passion with a great way to make a living. That’s enviable.
Congratulations Mike! I’m sure this was a difficult decision as this is your baby. You have always been courteous, dedicated and professional in your dealings with your clients.
I certainly enjoyed the few times I was privileged to fly on one of your charters.
With best wishes for continued success and good health,