Sugar Land, TX February 05, 2026
PrimeFlight Aviation Services (“PrimeFlight”), a portfolio company of The Sterling Group, today announced the acquisition of GAT Airline Ground Support (“GAT”).
GAT provides mission-critical ground handling, cargo handling and, under its Sky Café brand, catering services to airline customers across the United States and Canada. Headquartered in Peachtree City, Georgia, GAT has approximately 6,000 employees and operates at nearly 70 airports across North America.
“We are incredibly excited to welcome the GAT team to PrimeFlight and hope this transaction signals our longstanding commitment to providing our airline partners with world class aviation services,” explained Charlotte Cheatham, COO and EVP for PrimeFlight. “This acquisition is a significant milestone in our strategic growth plan. GAT greatly expands our ground handling footprint and further enhances our relationship with our airline partners through the addition of highly complementary capabilities, stations, and relationships. The combination will allow us to leverage operational efficiencies to better serve the industry.”
The acquisition brings two leading organizations together to operate as a more diversified global provider of aviation services. Following the transaction, PrimeFlight now operates at more than 250 airports and service locations across six continents and adds catering services to its existing strength in fueling, ground handling, cargo handling, GSE manufacturing, and GSE maintenance, among other services. GAT provides PrimeFlight with new stations, adds longstanding customer relationships, and deepens its below-wing capabilities, positioning PrimeFlight for long-term success. The added scale will enable PrimeFlight to invest more significantly in its people, training, technology, safety, equipment, and operational resilience.
“As we join PrimeFlight, we’re incredibly excited to become part of one of the world’s largest aviation and ground handling organizations—one that shares our commitment to people, safety, and operational excellence,” said Mike Hough, Chief Executive Officer of GAT. “Together, we’re positioned to build an even stronger future for our employees, our customers, and the industry as a whole.”
While PrimeFlight will maintain the Sky Café brand and operations for its catering service offering, GAT’s other operations and brand will be fully integrated into PrimeFlight in the coming months.
DLA Piper served as legal counsel to PrimeFlight for this transaction.
About PrimeFlight Aviation Services
Headquartered in Sugar Land, Texas, PrimeFlight Aviation Services and its network of subsidiaries provides major airlines and airports with ground handling, fueling services, cargo handling, GSE maintenance, aircraft services, deicing, passenger services, aviation cleaning supplies, and terminal services, as well as general aviation aircraft cleaning and support services, across a global footprint. PrimeFlight is a portfolio company of The Sterling Group and Capitol Meridian Partners. For more information, visit www.primeflight.com.
About The Sterling Group
Founded in 1982, The Sterling Group is a private equity and private credit investment firm that targets investments in basic manufacturing, distribution, and industrial services companies. Typical enterprise values of these companies at initial formation range from $100 million to $1 billion. Sterling has sponsored the buyout of 77 platform companies and numerous add-on acquisitions for a total transaction value of over $27 billion. Sterling currently has approximately $9.0 billion of assets under management. For further information, please visit www.sterling-group.com.
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