Aircraft, E-commerce, and Culture: Inside Pilot John International’s Growth Story

In this episode of OpenSkies, we sit down with John Werner, founder and CEO of Pilot John International, to explore how a Midwest farm kid with a love of aviation and tech built one of the fastest-growing e-commerce companies in the ground support equipment industry. John shares his unique path from flying Dash 8 (DHC-8) as a commercial pilot to scaling a niche aviation business from a blog with a few parts listings to a 50-person operation that ships 80% of orders the same day.

We talk about the company’s evolution, John’s focus on customer-centric technology, and how Pilot John is helping to drag aviation logistics out of the spreadsheet era. He walks us through how they blend personal service with modern platforms, why keeping everything in-house matters, and how the team is building for global scale. If you’re curious about entrepreneurship, e-commerce in aviation, or the power of combining passion and process, this episode is a must-listen.

• Connect with Pilot John: https://pilotjohn.com/
• Shop by aircraft here: https://pilotjohn.com/aircraft
• Connect with John: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pilotjohn/
• Follow Pilot John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pilotjohninternational/