On Thursday, May 17, Sedona residents will likely see numerous small corporate jets from around the country landing at the Sedona Airport. Aviation executives, chief executive officers, chief operating officers and owners of major corporate airlines, aircraft manufacturing companies, suppliers and other corporate officials will be arriving in Sedona for the annual gathering of the Conquistadores del Cielo aviation club that takes place around the country.
Executives will also reportedly be arriving at Flagstaff Pulliam Airport and Ernest A Love Field Prescott Municipal Airport and communting to Sedona. Elected officials with ties to the airline industry are also often in attendance but the club does not publicly announce the names of attendees.
Conquistadores del Cielo, which translates as “Conquerors of the Sky,” is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that meets off-the-record twice a year. The meeting is expected to last about three days. The location hosting the club’s meeting has not been announced. Several years ago the club met at the Hilton Sedona Resort at Bell Rock in the Village of Oak Creek.
Conquistadores del Cielo was co-founded in 1937 by Transcontinental & Western Air — later known as Trans World Airlines or TWA — President William John “Jack” Frye, a Sedona area resident at the time, and Vice President Paul Richter to informally gather corporate aviation leaders at dude ranches in the West and at annual meetings in New York.
Jack Frye and his wife, Helen Varner Anderson Vanderbilt Frye, were major figures in the Sedona area in the 1940s and 1950s. The Fryes bought the 330-acre Smoke Trail Ranch along Oak Creek southwest of Sedona in 1941 and built the House of Apache Fires at the ranch.
Longtime supports of the arts, the Fryes helped Verde Valley School Art Department instructor Nassan Gobran and other residents establish the Sedona Arts Center in 1958. Helen Frye was also instrumental in helping to create the Humane Society of Sedona.
After Jack Frye died in 1959, Helen Frye maintained the ranch until she sold it to a developer in the early 1970s. The land was later transferred to Eckankar religious movement. Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt negotiated a conservation deal for Eckankar to sell the land to the Anamax Mining Company, which then donated it to the state in exchange for about 4,000 acres in Pinal County. The 286-acre Frye Ranch was then developed into Red Rock State Park.
According to its 2017 tax filing, the Conquistadores del Cielo nonprofit is headquartered in Westlake Village, Calif., led by former Hawaiian Airlines CEO Mark Dunkerley and retired Mesa Airlines Board of Directors Chairman Daniel J. Altobello
The club’s formal mission is “To develop and promote interest in aerospace activities, sponsoring and giving educational, social, recreational and athletic events and functions that will bring together and unite in fellowship persons interested in the general purpose of the organization, and any other activities that such fellowship shall kindle and inspire.”
According airline industry commentator Gary Leff, who runs the View From The Wing blog, “It’s a secret society complete with rituals, and several big deals in the industry have been hatched there.”
“Airline executives claim to avoid business discussions at these meetings,” Leff writes. “There’s natural concern about anti-trust violations.”
The Associated Press reported American Airlines’ CEO Tom Horton saying in 2012 that the merger of American Airlines and U.S. Airways into American Airlines Group in January 2012 was apparently pitched at a Conquistadores del Cielo meeting at the A Bar A Ranch in Wyoming in September 2011.
In the early 2000s, according to the FlyerTalk pilots forum three aeronautical avionics executives reportedly discussed a upcoming merger. One executives acted on the insider tip and purchased shares of the company being taken over. Another attendee reported the executive to the Securities and Exchange Commission and all three were expelled from the Conquistadores for violating the club’s “no business talk” rule.
The first Conquistadores del Cielo members included 91 executives from aviation and aviation-related companies. Members who attended at least three meetings were eligible for initiation into the club.
The autumn meetings traditionally take place at the A Bar A on the Ranch North Platte River, in southern Wyoming’s Medicine Bow Mountains. According to the group’s papers dated between 1940 and 1975, on deposit at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, “The highlight of the week was the initiation ceremony for new members who had attended three meetings. This ceremony is a pantomime induction with processions of Conquistadores riding down from the hills with lighted torches.
“Initiates are sworn in and dubbed ‘Conquistador.’ The script being read recounts the history of the Conquerors of the Sky. Fireworks conclude the ceremony.
“It is costumed by the workshop which costumes the Royal Spanish Opera in Madrid. Authentic period costumes complete with armor, swords, and full regalia are used. It is an extremely solemn occasion for members involved in the cause of promoting aviation in this country.”
“The highlight of the week was the initiation ceremony for new members who had attended three meetings. This ceremony is a pantomime induction with processions of Conquistadores riding down from the hills with lighted torches. “Initiates are sworn in and dubbed ‘Conquistador.’ The script being read recounts the history of the Conquerors of the Sky. Fireworks conclude the ceremony. “It is costumed by the workshop which costumes the Royal Spanish Opera in Madrid. Authentic period costumes complete with armor, swords, and full regalia are used. It is an extremely solemn occasion for members involved in the cause of promoting aviation in this country.”
