Transportation

Entrepreneur of the Year 2024: John and Ryan Anderson are taking Anderson Air to new heights

The private jet company has more than doubled in size since 2021

By Dani Wright /

THE KICKOFF: John Anderson is a veteran in the world of entrepreneurship; he operates one of Canada’s leading produce suppliers, Oppy. But why run one successful business when you can run two? Especially when the second one was born out of true passion. Decades after the elder Anderson founded aircraft management and executive charter firm Anderson Air, his son Ryan has risen through the ranks to help steer the organization alongside his father—and together they’re taking the company to new heights.

When John launched Anderson Air in the 1980s, he was already helping lead Oppy (then known as the Oppenheimer Group). One could argue that the work ethic that enabled John to steer two companies at once is present in Ryan: he was no stranger to working multiple jobs before he joined Anderson Air—in fact, one of those jobs was delivering newspapers by air to different areas in B.C.

ACTION PLAN: Headquartered at YVR, Anderson Air is on the corporate side of aviation. “We charter the airplanes out commercially, but we   also manage airplanes for people—provide the crew; do the maintenance; provide flight coordination, accounting; buy and sell airplanes if they want us to. It’s a full-service approach,” explains John.

That sense of service doesn’t stop at the customer level—unlike many other travel-related businesses, Anderson Air avoided layoffs during the pandemic. “We foresaw the industry taking off after COVID,” John adds. “The best way for us  to be ready for that was to keep  our people.”

It paid off: there was a big charter surge post-pandemic, and Anderson Air was ready to take advantage of it. “Since 2021, the company has more than doubled in size,” explains John, who says that Anderson Air grew from some $18 million in sales annually to around $60 million now. Both execs credit that growth—and the company’s predicted future expansion—to their service-based perspective. “We’re in the aviation industry, but the actual business that we’re in is client service,” notes Ryan.

CLOSING STATEMENT: Currently, Anderson Air is on track to be the first corporate aviation company in Canada to offer sustainable aviation fuel, called SAF—a refining process that puts less carbon into the atmosphere.

Q+A

Describe your dream employee in three words:

JA: Passionate, loyal, caring.

What’s the best leadership advice you’ve ever received?

RA: There’s no substitute for hard work.