Pilot Travel Centers
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| Type | Privately held limited liability company |
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| Founded | September 1, 2001 |
| Headquarters | Knoxville, Tennessee, USA |
| Industry | truck stop, convenience store, petroleum, restaurant |
| Parent | Pilot Corporation, CVC Capital Partners |
| Website | PilotCorp.com |
Pilot Travel Centers is a chain of truck stops in the United States.
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[edit] History
Pilot Travel Centers was founded on September 1, 2001 in a joint venture between Pilot Corporation and Marathon Petroleum Company. Immediately all Pilot Truck Stops were converted into Pilot Travel Centers. At its inception, the number of stops was around 60; however, that was to be short-lived.
In the next few years, Pilot Travel Centers experienced significant growth. Marathon converted many Speedway truck stops, wholly owned by Marathon, over to the Pilot Travel Center moniker starting in mid-2002. Midway through 2003, another major expansion occurred with the purchase of the Williams Truck Stop chain. The Marathon-Pilot joint venture successfully increased the Pilot Travel Center name recognition throughout the United States, as the number of stops more than quadrupled.
In 2008, Pilot bought out Marathon's interest in the business and entered into a new partnership arrangement with CVC Capital Partners, an international private equity firm.[1]
In July 2009, Pilot agreed to purchase Flying J's travel centers, as a part of Flying J's efforts to remove itself from Chapter 11 bankruptcy.[2]
[edit] Business profile
Currently, Pilot Travel Centers is the largest purveyor of over-the-road diesel fuel in the United States. Pilot also is known as the largest Travel Center Chain in the country with 274 locations at the time of this writing. Pilot is also the third largest franchisor of quick service restaurants in the nation, offering one to three different concepts at each location, and is also the largest franchisee of Subway in the world with over 200 locations. Unlike many travel centers and truck stops, the majority of Pilot Travel Centers do not utilize full-service dining, although four locations do have a Denny's restaurant while two in Georgia feature Steak 'n Shake.
Pilot's main restaurants include Arby's, Chester's Chicken, Dairy Queen, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Subway, Taco Bell, T.J. Cinnamons, and Wendy's, with one location deals with several other restaurants. The restaurant offered depends on whatever is already open in the area at the time Pilot opens a new travel center. Pilot owns and operates the restaurants inside the locations with the notable exception of McDonald's, which leases space off of Pilot at the travel center and is operated by either McDonald's itself or whoever is the local franchisee of McDonald's in the immediate area. Pilot, in return, gets a small portion of McDonald's profits at the travel center but is also responsible for outside maintenance with the McDonald's portion of the travel center.
Pilot's main competitors include TravelCenters of America, Love's Travel Stops, Stuckey's, Road Ranger, Roady's Truck Stops, and T/A-owned Petro Stopping Centers.
[edit] Pittsburgh Steelers
In 2008, Pilot president Jim Haslam III, son of founder Jim Haslam Jr., purchased a 16% stake in the Pittsburgh Steelers as part of the team's ownership restructuring due to some members of the Rooney family becoming increasingly involved in gambling, violating NFL rules.[3] It is not known at this time if it will lead to a sponsorship deal between the two at Pittsburgh-area Pilot Travel Centers locations (especially with the Steelers being among the most popular teams in the NFL, if not professional sports), or possibly a sponsorship deal with the NFL in general nationwide. The Rooney family will retain control of the franchise itself.
[edit] References
- ^ Pilot buys Marathon stake in travel centers, sells 47.5% of PTC to CVC, Knoxville News Sentinel, October 1, 2008
- ^ Duncan Mansfield (2009-07-14). "Pilot to acquire Flying J's 250 travel centers". Associated Press. http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/07/14/ap6654912.html. Retrieved 2009-07-15.
- ^ ESPN - NFL approves Rooney's ownership plan
