When Kyle Patel, the founder and CEO of jet charter firm Bitlux, was growing up in rural Georgia, he was fascinated by high velocity. “I was a fan of everything that went fast,” Patel says. “And cars were the most immediate thing. By age 4, I knew what a Porsche 911 looked like.” Patel read racing magazines as a youngster and immersed himself in fast-car lore. He also grew up in a family where his father was a commercial pilot and often visited aviation museums.
Today, at 33, Patel has been able to combine his passions for “things that went fast” on land and in the air: He heads a Boca Raton-based company that provides global luxury jet charters, owns and races an Italian-made WolfGB08 race car and sponsors Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo cars that the TR3 racing team in Davie runs in competitions throughout North America.
“The combination is really good,” Patel says. “I’m surrounded by amazing people … our charter customers, entrepreneurs, racing drivers and crews, car owners and our employees.”
Patel decided to start up his own jet charter company in 2018 after working for other air charter companies and helping to grow their businesses. He saw an opportunity for a new tech-driven luxury charter enterprise that offered better customer service, plus rapid booking and luxury amenities to domestic and international clients.
And cryptocurrency played a key role in his decision. “The idea came to me in 2017, when I was working for a competitor,” Patel says. “I had a customer who had difficulty using dollars for payment and needed to use Bitcoin. My boss laughed at me for suggesting Bitcoin and said no.”
Patel realized then that there was an expanding number of potential charter clients who wanted to use digital currencies and began planning his new enterprise. He learned how companies could process cryptocurrency payments, left his former employer and set up Bitlux — a name that combines Bitcoin and luxury — in February 2018.
Patel started his company with limited funds but abundant expertise. “I had about $26,000 in the bank, but my capital costs were mostly sweat equity and the new business was very tech-oriented,” he says. Patel learned about the jet charter business by holding key jobs at three different air charter companies and brought this expertise to Bitlux. He also brought along his Rolodex of aircraft operators and contacts, built the Bitlux website and, since he couldn’t afford costly advertising at the outset, used social media and personal contacts to promote the new enterprise.
In promoting Bitlux, Patel stressed that the company would accept cryptocurrencies. “We made a big pitch for Bitcoin and told potential clients we accept other types of digital currency,” he says.
Bitlux successfully expanded in a highly competitive market, attracting many customers who paid in cryptocurrency as well as others who used traditional currencies. “We’re now operating with about 400 lift movements per year, compared to 30 in 2018,” he notes. He began with one employee — himself — and now has thirteen.
Customers include businesspeople, wealthy individuals on vacation, family offices, people travelling with pets and oil and gas entrepreneurs. “A lot of them circulate in the cryptoverse,” Patel says, “wealthy cryptonomads.” When SFBW spoke with Patel, one client had just returned from a trip to Africa and another was in space.
Getting Bitlux off the ground
How do you launch a jet charter business that uses multimillion-dollar planes with startup capital of only $26,000? Patel knew every aspect of how jet charter operations work. Like luxury yachts, there is a pool of privately owned passenger jets based in Florida and other areas that are available for charters and short- and long-term lease operations. They are flown by experienced and qualified pilots and are strictly licensed and maintained. All this allows a charter company to operate without owning aircraft or maintaining a staff of pilots and maintenance personnel.
To attract new clients, Patel launched Jet Card, a prepaid card that gives holders priority access to jets with 48-hour availability and fixed rates, plus concierge service.
Bitlux is based in Boca Raton, but “Clients can charter a flight from anywhere in the world and our planes can be located anywhere,” Patel notes. The company provides a full range of aircraft from light jets to heavy, long-range aircraft, including the Challenger 350, Citation 10, Legacy 650 and the latest Gulfstream jets. Charters can include cabin service and luxury in-flight meals. Hourly rates for Bitlux charters can range from $8,532 to $16,800, depending on the aircraft and in-flight service required.
“We value the people using our service,” Patel says. “Bitlux provides a level of service that is not present in our realm of the market. We’re tech-driven and already have AI working in our system, making humans more efficient. We’re also developing a customer-facing app so customers can manage their own flights. With Bitlux, people can stop settling for mediocre service.”
Connecting with TR3 Racing
Before setting up Bitlux, Patel found out about the TR3 Racing Team while driving to work when he was employed by a different air charter service. “I saw a garage near the Fort Lauderdale airport (CQ) with several Ferraris,” Patel says. He had also met a TR3 racing team driver, who told him about the organization. Patel stopped at the garage, called TR3 Performance, met with its staff and learned about the TR3 racing team.
TR3 Performance Inc., is a specialized garage that provides a range of performance and body enhancements for high-end street cars —think Ferraris, Porsches and Lamborghinis. A Ferrari owner, for example, may want to add a different exhaust or suspension system, modify the body or add custom wheels. Clients own cars that are used in drag racing, street racing and formal track competitions.
The garage, now located in Davie, is owned by brothers Arthur, Oliver and Gregory Romanelli, who also run the TR3 Racing team. TR3 Racing and its professional drivers compete at Sebring, Homestead, Daytona and other racetracks on a Grand Touring circuit. “We decided to start our own shop in 2012 to work on race cars and street cars,” says Gregory Romanelli, CEO of TR3 Racing.
Aside from racing his own WolfGB08, Patel arranged a sponsorship with TR3 Racing: The Bitlux name appears on five out of the six Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo cars the team races.
