The founder of Omni Air International and former Sun Country Airlines CEO Jude Bricker have stepped in to buy the airline from private equity firm Stonepeak, which needed to quickly divest Omni Air to close a $2.53 billion parking meter concession from the city of Chicago over objections about Trump administration deportation flights.
Air Transport Services Group announced last Monday it has agreed to sell Omni Air, a passenger charter and outsourced airline provider, to OAI Holdings and focus on its cargo-related portfolio of airline, leasing, maintenance and logistics services companies. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter or early 2027, subject to customary closing conditions, including approval by regulators. Financial terms were not disclosed.
No details about OAI Holdings or the investors behind the sale were provided. A news release said the new management team brings deep expertise in aviation. An ATSG representative declined to provide additional information. Stonepeak did not respond to repeated messages.
Stonepeak was under pressure from Chicago politicians to find an Omni Air buyer by Sept. 30 because of its contract with the Department of Homeland Security. The news release made no mention of the parking meter quid pro quo.
OAI Holdings was registered as a business in Nevada on Sept. 22, according to state filings reviewed by FreightWaves — six days before the sale was announced. The company has three officers, including Robert Coretz, who founded Omni Air in 1993 and was its chairman and CEO until 2018, when ATSG bought the company for $845 million. Cortez is currently on the advisory board at Omega Capital Management, and is affiliated with Amtra Capital Partners, an aircraft leasing and management firm — both based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Omni Air is also headquartered in Tulsa.
The Cortez ownership group likely paid less for Omni Air than it originally sold for because it is a distressed asset.
Jude Bricker, who served as CEO of Sun Country Airlines until its sale to Allegiant Travel Co. in May and now sits on Allegiant’s board of directors, is also an officer. The third partner is Robert Waldo, the president of Kaiser-Francis Oil Co., an upstream oil and gas company owned by Kaiser Industries — and based in Tulsa.
OAI Holdings is a private company associated with Rob Coretz, according to the Airline Professionals Association, which represents pilots at Omni Air.
“In many ways, this sale to OAI Holdings appears to be a best-case scenario — a ‘return home’ for Omni and its pilots. In a phone call this morning, Omni President David Ray indicated that Mr. Coretz intends to rebuild, refleet, and grow Omni. And unlike other potential buyers, Mr. Coretz has the track record to make that a reality,” said David Pyers, a pilot and chairman of the Omni Pilots Executive Council, a unit of the Teamsters-affiliated Airline Professionals Association, in a message to members posted on the group’s website.
“For now, we view this as a positive development and are cautiously optimistic about what lies ahead,” he added.
Parking meters behind Omni exit
New York-based Stonepeak acquired ATSG last year when it was still publicly traded. Rather than an attempt to optimize the performance of a portfolio company, Stonepeak was motivated to unload Omni because of opposition to controversial deportation flights for Immigration and Customs Enforcement that threatened to derail a lucrative concession agreement with the city of Chicago, according to city council officials and local media.
Omni Air has conducted long-range deportation flights for many years, but the number of flights increased last year and included trips to remove immigrants to third countries where they had no ties.
More than a dozen members of the Chicago City Council declared they would not approve Stonepeak buying operating control of the city’s 36,000 parking meters for $2.53 billion under a 75-year lease unless it sold Omni Air. A Stonepeak official previously told the City Council that the company disagreed with the administration’s deportation policy and was actively trying to sell the company.
In mid-September, a group of councillors struck a deal to allow the parking meter deal if Omni was sold. Stonepeak also agreed to pay the city $75 million once the sale closes and 5% of its net operating income from the parking meter business annually.
ATSG is the largest lessor of freighter aircraft in the world, with a fleet that mostly consists of Boeing 767-200 and -300 converted freighters sprinkled in with recent additions of Airbus A321 narrowbody and A330-300 medium-widebody jets. It is best known for owning cargo airlines ABX Air and Air Transport International, which provide the backbone for Amazon Air’s domestic air network and also support DHL Express. It also has a subsidiary that provides aircraft maintenance services.
Omni Air provides charter services for commercial and government customers, including the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and the New England Patriots football team. Omni also supplies aircraft and operating support to airlines through ACMI wet leasing and offers airline startup, route development and aircraft management services. Omni Air has 11 aircraft in its fleet: eight Boeing 767s and three 777-200 extended range jets.
Some, if not all of Omni Air’s airframes are owned by Cargo Aircraft Management, an ATSG subsidiary, which leases them to Omni. Nothing in the OAI Holdings sale announcement suggests that OAI Holdings is also purchasing the aircraft.
“This agreement marks an important step for ATSG as it reflects the advancement of our long-term strategy of investing in and building out our core air cargo and related aviation services businesses,” said CEO Greg Mays. “We have been assessing strategic options for Omni for some time given the significant opportunities in air cargo. This transaction allows us to focus our resources more fully on serving that market and related customers. We look forward to continuing to execute on our strategic vision, and are confident that OAI is the right next owner for Omni and their customers as they will benefit from OAI’s decades of proven aviation experience.”
Click here for more FreightWaves/American Shipper stories by Eric Kulisch.
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