One of Kolin Jones’ favorite quotes is “better known beats best” — and it’s a motto that appears to be serving him well.
His California-based private aviation firm, Amalfi Jets, has hit the heights of social media stardom with 2.9 million followers and 144 million likes on TikTok, and 778,000 followers on Instagram. That online fame has translated into real-world bookings, said Jones.
The 24-year-old, who grew up in Westlake Village, Los Angeles, founded the company in 2020, shortly after earning his pilot’s license at nearby Van Nuys Airport.
After dabbling in e-commerce and selling products through Shopify, he launched Amalfi Jets at just 18 years old from his dorm room at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, where he later graduated with a degree in Aeronautics and a minor in Aviation Business Administration.
“Amalfi Jets has no outside investors and was started literally with $0 and a credit card. No investors, no loans, and pure determination and hard work to push an industry that is very ‘dinosaur-laden’ forward,” he told The Independent.
“During college, after founding, I reached out to one of my close friends from high school, Calvin Yoon, who has been my business partner as we’ve grown.”
Amalfi Jets now has 27 full-time employees, and while it doesn’t own any aircraft, it offers on-demand charter services from a network of 3,500 aircraft across 170 countries, Jones says. The roster of famous clientele includes influencer and Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Olivia Dunne.
Side by side with regular business dealings, Jones has used TikTok to lift the curtain on private aviation, much as the wildly popular reality show Below Deck did for the world of super yachts. In clips, we see Jones fielding a request for the cabin to “smell like Dior Sauvage cologne”, and a client calling to book a plane for their puppets.
“There are a lot of great companies in this space — very well-capitalized, well-resourced businesses. But one thing I’ve noticed is that many of them are quite conservative and traditional in how they operate. So, when we started, I knew there was no way we were going to beat them in terms of being traditional. And on the flip side, we couldn’t be purely ridiculous either,” he said.
“For us, getting on social media was about sharing the world of private jets — a world most people never get to see. I like showing off the craziness of customers, because people don’t get a good look at that. People understand the world of yachts through shows like Below Deck, but there’s no private jet equivalent of that.
“Our goal online was simple: show the crazy, fun side of private aviation, but also show we are real people behind the brand. I think a lot of companies hide behind their branding, trying to be this perfect, cookie-cutter version of what they think success looks like. I wanted us to do the opposite — to be authentic. And I think that’s helped us tremendously.”
His social-media presence doesn’t stop at client requests. Jones and his young staff — the age range is 23 to 44 — also post their behind-the-scenes dramas and escapades at the company.
In a clip viewed over 236,000 times, Jones boards an Amalfi jet and “races” it against an employee on a commercial Spirit Airlines plane from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
Staff are also seen being “reprimanded” for using company credit cards to spend thousands of dollars a week on non-vital items — from coffees to party magicians — and in another, a member of staff tells Jones that an executive from a rival firm has “turned up in the lobby to buy Amalfi Jets”. In this scene, Jones orders the unwanted guest to be escorted off the premises by security.
The clips portray a slightly zany office culture – so how does Jones strike a balance between the need for client privacy and professionalism, and visibility on social media? After all, discretion and slick service are the main reasons that ultra-rich travelers decide to fly private.
The calls that are shown on TikTok represent only a tiny fraction of the company’s business, Jones says.
“The clients, the calls and stuff that you see on social media are maybe two percent of our business. Ninety-eight percent of our business is a client calling me up and saying, ‘Hi Kolin, I need a jet from New York to London.’ ‘Great — it’s $150,000.’ ‘Great, I just sent you the money. Have a good day.’ Super simple. Takes two seconds, and that’s the vast majority of the situations we encounter.”
Jones, who isn’t qualified to pilot jets but enjoys flying light aircraft with friends, believes that his TikTok account has helped change the public perception of private jets and notes that the world isn’t “full of horrible rich people.”
“For a lot of people, flying private isn’t about luxury — it’s about necessity. For some, it’s the only way to fly. It allows people to be in multiple places at once,” he said.
“We have a client, with a team of about 12, who were doing a big company roadshow. When they were based in LA, they flew with us to Omaha, Chicago, New York, Boston and Miami — all in one day. If they’d tried to do that commercially with 12 people, it would’ve been a multi-day trip — with separate flights, hotels, rental cars and per diems — and they’d still have been dictated by airline schedules.
“Instead, we used two flight crews and had them home by midnight, with their families. If you’re earning $15 million a year, the hourly math makes sense.
“So, we try to change the public perception: there’s a real need for private jets. The people behind them aren’t ‘evil’ — they’re often just everyday people trying to spend more time with their families, or to do more in a day. It’s the most efficient, safest and most comfortable way to travel, and there’ll always be a need for that.”
There’s also another type of flyer, according to Jones — one who’s simply had enough of airport chaos and delays. Every time a commercial carrier suffers a customer service meltdown or the queues at check-in snake around the terminal, calls to Amalfi Jets apparently surge.
He said: “We once had a client whose commercial flight was suddenly canceled. They called us from the airport, and within 37 minutes they were in the air on one of our jets. The aircraft had just landed from another trip, so we sent a car to collect them from the main terminal and get them straight onto the plane. That is the beauty of private jets.
“We even used that experience to launch a slogan, ‘If you’re stuck at the gate and feeling blue, Amalfi Jets will rescue you.’ It was meant to be fun and catchy — and it worked. Whenever airlines canceled flights, people started tagging us or reaching out, saying, ‘Come rescue me!’
“That’s how we try to use social media — to be a lot more provocative.”
He added: “People don’t remember another ’20 percent off your next flight’ email. Nobody cares. But people love it when it’s us singing and dancing in the office about airlines dropping the ball.
“Commercial airlines have definitely contributed to our growth. Airlines innovate with newer planes, but at the end of the day, the airport experience has not changed. Airports are still crowded, you still have traffic at them… flying private is light years different from flying commercially.”
