Founder and Member · WingLeader
A pilot, an attorney, and the operator behind a back office built for Part 91 flight operations.
Airline Transport Pilot certificate
Licensed in Florida
Founder and Member, WingLeader
Veterans Airlift Command · Challenge Air · Angel Flight SE
Founder and Member
Abram Finkelstein is the Founder and Member of WingLeader, and the pilot behind it. He holds an Airline Transport Pilot certificate and has spent years flying for aircraft owners and operators across the country - which gave him a close look at how Part 91 and contract pilot operations actually run, and how often the back-office work falls through the cracks.
He holds a JD from the University of Miami School of Law and a BBA in Accounting from the University of Texas at Austin, and is a licensed attorney in Florida. That background shapes how WingLeader approaches compliance, documentation, and the contract structures that protect the operators it serves.
Outside of work, Abram volunteers as a pilot with Veterans Airlift Command, Challenge Air for Kids and Friends and Angel Flight Southeast, flying veterans, disabled children and individuals who need medical transportation.
The University of Texas at Austin
University of Miami School of Law
State of Florida
Years flying for owners and operators across the country
Back-office partner for Part 91 operations
Veterans Airlift Command · Challenge Air · Angel Flight Southeast
I spent years working in aviation watching the same problem repeat itself. Pilots and operators who were excellent at flying were drowning in paperwork, scheduling headaches, and compliance tasks that had nothing to do with actually running a safe operation. The administrative side of aviation is genuinely complex – and for smaller flight departments and independent operators, it usually falls on whoever has a spare hour, which is rarely the right answer.
“I founded WingLeader because I believed there was a better way to support the people running Part 91 fleets and smaller flight operations. Not a software platform. Not a full-service management company with the overhead to match. Something more practical: a back-office partner that handles dispatch, compliance, and operations support so that pilots can focus on flying and owners can focus on running their business.”
The operators we work with are managing real aircraft, real schedules, and real regulatory obligations – often with a lean team and limited margin for error. WingLeader exists to be the support structure behind that work: organized, reliable, and built around the way aviation actually operates.
The company managing four planes, two helicopters, and a seaplane by group text. The single-aircraft owner who genuinely believes his dry lease arrangement is legal, but it’s not. The corporate pilot handling his own scheduling, his own expense reports, and his own compliance tracking between flights. These are not edge cases. They are the norm in smaller Part 91 operations.
WingLeader exists to give those operators something they have not had before: a professional operations team and the technology that goes with it, without the cost and structure of a full management company.
We work with aircraft managers, aircraft owners, and small flight departments operating 1 to 5 aircraft under Part 91. If you run a larger fleet or need a full turnkey management solution, companies like Clay Lacy or Solairus may be a better fit. If you need operational structure, compliance support, and a back office that handles the work between flights – that is what we do.
The FAA treats the aircraft owner as the operator under Part 91, regardless of who is flying or how the arrangement is structured. WingLeader maintains the records, credentials, procedures, and dry lease documentation that keep your operation legal and defensible. Illegal dry lease enforcement is an active FAA priority.
Full-service aircraft management companies are built for larger fleets and higher budgets. WingLeader is built for operators managing 1 to 5 aircraft who need professional back-office support at a scale that makes sense for their operation.
Right now, your pilots probably handle more than flight duties - trip logistics, expense tracking, scheduling coordination. That is not what you hired them for. WingLeader takes that work off the flight deck.
Scheduling, crew status, upcoming maintenance, trip costs, passenger allocation - all tracked and reported in one place. No more piecing together what happened from a thread of texts.
