Member Highlight, Kathryn Creedy, Aviation Reporter & Copywriter

Kathryn Creedy, Aviation Reporter & Copywriter

One of the biggest benefits for our Aviation Marketing Master Class is the opportunity to network with aviation professionals. Our Facebook Group Facilitator, Bert Botta, is interviewing one member a week to help us get to know one another better, make better referrals to each other, and generally learn more about the smartest people in the industry.

If you were to target a customer for you or your company, how would I spot that ideal customer?


I look for companies who want a fresh marketing angle; one that has not been used before.

My type of companies are those who also want to represent business aviation as a thought leader; one that understands the value of business aviation but who does not know how to communicate it except by using the tired old rhetoric that has gotten us nowhere in public understanding.

We have yet to convince anyone – although I’ve written about it enough – that business aviation is the perfect nexus between Wall Street and Main Street — that the more Wall Street buys, the more jobs there are on Main Street.

My ideal customer would be someone who wants to take on that challenge; who wants to use solid travel data to recruit new passengers to business aviation; who wants to become an industry leader.

How would you best describe your company’s approach, products and services, and value propositions?


Hard work. To do what I want to do, for the industry and for the companies for which I hope to work, it will take a lot of hard work. We must develop all the products necessary to create the appropriate narrative for the company and the industry. Those products must be designed to convince the corporate CFO to consider business aviation based on the value of an executive’s time and how much airline services cost in wasted time. I have quantified all those factors.

Business aviation remains a mystery to most travelers and we need to develop products that will not only introduce them to a dynamic industry but will prompt them to pick up the phone. New technology is developing every day to reduce the complexity of business aviation and these products would exploit that.

In addition, the products must be customized to the individual company while addressing a broader audience that enhances the understanding of business aviation. I’ve done this successfully throughout my career on subjects as varied as adoption to business aviation. I’ve written the narratives for Embraer, for example, that cast them not as just another manufacturer but as an innovator that changed the industry. That is part of what I would like to do with business aviation operators.

As for the services, there is only one and that is to ensure that the executive’s time is used as efficiently as possible. The idea is to create all the products necessary to make an individual company stand out from the crowd while keeping an executive’s time on the product limited to interviewing and editing – interviewing to find out what sets a company apart and editing the ultimate written product.

Of course this would also include media and community organizational outreach as well as social media.

The value proposition would be increasing passenger numbers, setting the company apart from competition and in enhancing the understanding of business aviation so that it is considered when travel plans are being made.

What might prospects say to trigger me to refer them to you?

“I am looking for a fresh, new marketing angle.” “I get so frustrated when someone says or writes something that misrepresents business aviation.” “We spend a lot of time poaching each other’s customers.” How do we increase the size of our customer base?”

“I know I should be doing social media but I don’t understand it and don’t have the time to learn it. Nor do I have the time to create all that content.”

Social media should never be a sales tool. Rather it should be an intelligence-gathering tool.

What is your marketing process once you receive a referral?

I generally work with the customer to establish their goals and what sets them apart.

How did you get where you are in your professional life?

I have been in aviation for a very long time – decades. I learned aviation, journalism and public relations at my father’s knee. He was director-North Atlantic PR for Pan American and vice president-PR for the then Air Transport Association. I started out in American’s PR office. I then focused on the regional airline industry, founding Commuter/Regional Airline News, building it to become the bible of the industry.

I also co-founded C/R News International to cover Europe. I’ve been a freelance aviation journalist but I’ve wafted back and forth between journalism and public relations throughout my career including a stint at FAA public affairs in Washington and representing both Embraer and Embraer Executive Jets. I’ve written for the top aviation publications.

I am one of the few reporters with a thorough understanding of both the commercial and business aviation industries. That puts me in the unique position of appreciating what business aviation is all about and what it can do for the harried business traveler now condemned to commercial aviation which is getting worse, not better.

Commercial aviation has no interest in improving its product to ensure the most efficient use of a passenger’s, not an airplane’s, time. The price gap between business and commercial aviation has narrowed considerably yet no one is exploiting this.

In addition, commercial airlines have dropped a lot of service to points with good industrial and economic bases. Innovative business aviation companies have stepped into the void and my dream job would be to help them spread the word that business aviation can be the answer to local travel needs.

My experience in the regional airline industry since the 1980s gives me a unique perspective on how business aviation can help.

In short, I know what needs to be developed and I know how to use it to the advantage of clients and the industry.

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