Palmetto Bay, FL – GMSTEK, LLC – In February, GMSTEK whose X-1FBO Management and Payment Processing suite of products is designed to drive a digital transformation for FBOs, pilots and operators was moving along like any other successful early stage company. Then the COVID-19 shutdown struck.

Customers who were about to sign said wait. The local government closed the company’s offices along with everyone else’s. It looked like business was grinding to a halt.

Confronted with this reality, CEO Jim Wiley and his team decided that they were going to treat this crisis as an opportunity for the company and its customers. FBOs have long needed modern technology that would increase revenue and drive efficiency that would wring the maximum profit from each dollar of revenue. This was an opportunity to get the attention of normally exceptionally busy FBO leaders. Revenue was way down, and it was important to help the FBOs out.

At the same time, facing the steep drop in traffic, FBOs took a long hard look at how they conducted business. With the Covid colored lens and some time to dig deeper, many FBOs came to grips with how inefficient so much of there business was. From the near total dependency on paper and the cumbersome legacy systems that created almost as much work as they tried to save.

Our current FBOs took advantage of the capabilities with X-1FBO as well, with Barry Johnson of Texas Aero having even the CSRs working from home while the Line Service department kept things running at the start of the shut down.

Jim and his team decided to roll out their X-1 Cares™ Program. Jim said, “I’m an FBO lifer. I know the business from the perspective of everyone from the LST to the GM. Layer on COVID-19, and we knew that this was an ideal time to set up FBOs to emerge leaner, meaner and ready to conquer the post-COVID-19 world.”

Jim continued, “We rolled out our ‘touchless’ implementation program. The FBOs love the efficiency and cost. We’re taking into account the short-term financial limitations that FBOs face, because these are long term relationships. And the response has been fantastic. Our business has actually increased!”