From travels stretching from Goleta down to the Los Angeles International Airport and everything in between, the Santa Barbara Airbus has been chartering people up and down the Central Coast. This April, they are preparing to celebrate their 42nd anniversary, which just so happens to coincide around the time of Airbus’s three millionth passenger trip.
“It’s just amazing to think that there have been three million people that have ridden on a bus, branded by Santa Barbara Airbus over 42 years,” said Airbus CEO Samantha Onnen. “It is just mind-blowing.”
Established in 1983 by founders Eric and Kelly Onnen and their friend Mark Klopstein, the Santa Barbara Airbus originally started because Kelly was working as a flight attendant and needed to travel to LAX regularly. What started as one van making roundtrips from Goleta to LAX has now grown to its current size of about 20 vehicles in their fleet.
Today, the Onnens’ daughters Samantha and Emily have taken the reins of the family business and are preparing for the upcoming milestones. Samantha has been in the business for about 10 years now and is transitioning to take over as CEO of the company. Emily joined as the Chief Strategy Officer a couple of years ago…