EY Announces Avelo Airlines Founder and CEO Andrew Levy as a 2024 Entrepreneur Of The Year® Gulf South Region Award Winner
- The preeminent entrepreneurship award celebrates the bold leaders who disrupt markets, revolutionize industries, and transform lives
HOUSTON, June 20, 2024 — Ernst & Young LLP (EY) today announced Houston-based Avelo Airlines Founder and CEO Andrew Levy was honored as a 2024 EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® in the elite competition’s Gulf South region. The EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® program is the preeminent awards program for entrepreneurs and leaders of high-growth companies.
Levy was selected by an independent judging panel composed of previous award winners, leading CEOs, and other business leaders. Candidates were evaluated based on their ability to create long-term value through entrepreneurial spirit, commitment to their purpose, and the demonstration of growth and substantial impact, among other key measures.
Levy said, “I’m honored to be an EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® in the Gulf South region – this distinction is a tribute to my fellow 1,000 Avelo Crewmembers who have driven Avelo’s growth and impact over the past three years. The industry-leading operational reliability, world-class customer satisfaction levels, and recent profitability milestones we’ve achieved are positively positioning Avelo for the substantial opportunities ahead.”
Levy brings three decades of corporate and entrepreneurial experience in the aviation and telecommunications sectors to Avelo. Over the course of his career, he has led profitable airlines from startup to scale. Levy was a Co-Founder and President at Allegiant Air for 14 years before joining United Airlines as CFO. Additionally, he is a board member of Copa, Latin America’s leading airline — a role he’s held since 2016. He is also a board member at AerSale — a leading supplier of aftermarket parts, whole assets and services to the commercial aerospace aftermarket. Levy started his aviation career at ValuJet Airlines. He also held senior leadership roles at Savoy Capital and Mpower Communications — a leading telecommunications and broadband provider.
As a regional award winner, Levy is now eligible for consideration for the Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2024 National Awards. The National Award winners, including the Entrepreneur Of The Year® National Overall Award winner, will be announced in November at the Strategic Growth Forum®, one of the nation’s most prestigious gatherings of high-growth, market-leading companies. The Entrepreneur Of The Year® National Overall Award winner will then move on to compete for the World Entrepreneur Of The Year® Award in June 2025.
About Avelo Airlines
Avelo Airlines’ (www.AveloAir.com) Purpose is to Inspire Travel by saving travelers time and money. When Avelo took flight on April 28, 2021, it became America’s first new airline in 15 years. Since then, Avelo has flown nearly 5 million Customers on nearly 40,000 flights serving 53 destinations spanning 24 states and Puerto Rico.
With its fleet of 16 Boeing Next-Generation 737 aircraft, Avelo is introducing travelers to a new era of convenience, affordability, and reliability. Avelo is differentiating itself by flying unserved routes to primarily underserved communities across the country – meaning every route has at least one small, easy to use airport. This makes every Avelo journey a smooth, easy, and more enjoyable experience than contending with the crowds and time-consuming experiences at larger airports.
Avelo is distinguished by its industry-leading reliability. In May, the airline ranked #1 in on-time performance and delivered the lowest flight cancellation rate in the industry – the second straight month Avelo led the industry in both metrics. Additionally, for the first five months of 2024, Avelo climbed to #1 in on-time performance and maintained the second-lowest flight cancellation rate among all U.S. carriers. These results are reported by Anuvu, a leading aviation data services company also utilized by The Wall Street Journal for the publication’s annual airline ranking.
About the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Program
Founded in 1986, Entrepreneur Of The Year® has celebrated more than 11,000 ambitious visionaries who are leading successful, dynamic businesses in the US, and it has since expanded to nearly 80 countries and territories globally. The US program consists of 17 regional programs whose panels of independent judges select the regional award winners every June.
Entrepreneur Of The Year® recognizes many different types of business leaders for their ingenuity, courage and entrepreneurial spirit. The program celebrates original founders who bootstrapped their business from inception or who raised outside capital to grow their company; transformational CEOs who infused innovation into an existing organization to catapult its trajectory; and multigenerational family business leaders who reimagined a legacy business model to fortify it for the future.
The Entrepreneur Of The Year® program has recognized the leadership of many admired entrepreneurs, including Starbucks’ Howard Schultz, Winnebago’s Michael Happe, LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman and Jeff Weiner, Fitbit’s James Park, and Kendra Scott, among others.
In addition to Entrepreneur Of The Year®, EY supports other entrepreneurs through the EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women™ program and the EY Entrepreneurs Access Network to help connect women founders and Black and Hispanic/Latino entrepreneurs, respectively, with the resources, network and access needed to unlock their full potential.
EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Sponsors
Founded and produced by Ernst & Young LLP, the Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards include presenting sponsors PNC Bank, Cresa, Marsh USA, SAP and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. In the Gulf South, sponsors also include ADP, DLA Piper, Marsh McLennan Agency, vcfo, Big Picture Inc., and Pierpont Communications.
About EY
EY exists to build a better working world, helping to create long-term value for clients, people and society and build trust in the capital markets. Enabled by data and technology, diverse EY teams in over 150 countries provide trust through assurance and help clients grow, transform and operate. Working across assurance, consulting, law, strategy, tax and transactions, EY teams ask better questions to find new answers for the complex issues facing our world today. EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. Information about how EY collects and uses personal data and a description of the rights individuals have under data protection legislation are available via ey.com/privacy. EY member firms do not practice law where prohibited by local laws. For more information about our organization, please visit ey.com.
Media Contacts
Jim Olson
Avelo Airlines
312-219-0647
jolson@aveloair.com
