PRASE Winners 2026

Professional Pilot magazine has released its 53rd annual PRASE (Preferences Regarding Aviation Services and Equipment) Survey results for 2026, crowning Monterey Jet Center at Monterey Regional Airport (MRY) as the top FBO in the United States for the second consecutive year, an honor it also claims in the Best Independent category. The remaining top five nationally are Pentastar Aviation at Oakland County International (PTK), Texas Jet at Fort Worth Meacham (FTW), Million Air at Addison (ADS), and Banyan Air Service at Fort Lauderdale Executive (FXE). Million Air ADS also earned Most Improved honors, while Galaxy FBO took the Small Chain (3-10 locations) title and Million Air swept the Large Chain (11+ locations) category. Monterey Jet Center's personnel also dominated individual honors, with line technician Jason Gray and CSR Kawai Lopez both recognized as top performers in their respective roles, underscoring that the facility's win is not simply about ramp aesthetics or amenities but about consistent, high-quality frontline service delivery.

The survey's methodology matters as much as its results for pilots and flight departments evaluating the credibility of these rankings. This year's PRASE drew 737 submitted ballots, of which 569 met Pro Pilot's acceptance criteria after 168 were disqualified for inconsistencies, duplications, or incomplete data. The resulting dataset—2,112 line evaluations and nearly 11,000 individual evaluations—was handed off to Conklin & de Decker, a JSSI company, for independent tabulation at its Arlington, TX headquarters. This third-party analysis, combined with strict rules barring PR, marketing, and advertising personnel from voting and limiting respondents to one ballot each, gives the PRASE survey a level of rigor that distinguishes it from informal industry polls. For flight departments and schedulers who rely on FBO reputation to make trip-planning and fuel-purchase decisions, this vetting process is precisely why PRASE has functioned as an industry benchmark since 1974.

For working pilots—particularly those flying Part 91, 91K, and Part 135 business aviation trips—these rankings carry direct operational relevance. FBO choice affects turn times, ramp safety, fuel pricing transparency, and the overall passenger experience, all of which reflect on the pilot-in-command and flight department. A facility recognized for line technician and CSR excellence, like Monterey Jet Center, signals lower risk of ground handling errors, miscommunication on fueling orders, or delays that can cascade into duty-time and scheduling problems. Chief pilots and directors of maintenance also use category winners in areas like MRO (West Star Aviation took top honors again), fuel brand (Avfuel), and trip planning (Universal Weather & Aviation) as informal vetting tools when building preferred-vendor lists or evaluating new destinations, especially for international operations where regional winners—Skyservice YYZ in Canada, Farnborough Airport in Europe, Jet Aviation DXB in the Middle East—offer a shorthand reference for reliable ground support in less familiar markets.

More broadly, the 2026 results reflect enduring trends in the FBO sector: consolidation among large chains (Million Air's continued dominance in the Large Chain category) coexisting with strong performance from independents and small operators who compete on personalized service rather than scale. Monterey Jet Center's repeat win as a boutique, independently run FBO demonstrates that customer satisfaction in ground services still hinges heavily on staff culture and consistency rather than corporate footprint alone. As business aviation traffic continues to grow and flight departments face pressure to optimize turnaround efficiency and cost control, surveys like PRASE provide an increasingly important, statistically vetted signal for where to route trips—reinforcing the ground service ecosystem's role as a critical, if sometimes underappreciated, component of overall flight safety and operational reliability.