Costco Wholesale flies to Scottsdale the week of record May sales and gas volumes

Costco Wholesale flew from Kenmore Air Harbor Seaplane Base near Seattle to Scottsdale Airport on June 17, a two-hour-and-thirteen-minute hop in its Gulfstream G280 (tail N82CW) that reached 41,000 feet. The trip comes the same week the company reported May net sales of $24.01 billion, up 14.5 percent from a year earlier, as detailed in a June 3 release on [investor.costco.com](https://investor.costco.com/news/news-details/2026/Costco-Wholesale-Corporation-Reports-May-Sales-Results/default.aspx). The retailer also just wrapped a fiscal third quarter that posted 11.6 percent sales growth and record-breaking gasoline volumes, with CEO Ron Vachris noting that the final five weeks of the quarter were the company's five highest-volume fuel weeks ever, per Yahoo Finance coverage.

The flight lands in Scottsdale, a market where Costco Wholesale operates several warehouses and draws significant membership traffic from the Phoenix metro area. The visit could involve a regional operations review or a meeting tied to the company's ongoing push to expand its warehouse count to 940 by fiscal year-end, up from 914 at the end of fiscal 2025, as reported by TIKR.com. Costco's executive team maintains a famously flat management structure, making direct regional visits a hallmark of CEO Ron Vachris's approach since taking the role in January 2024.

The G280 that made the trip, N82CW, has been busy across the country in recent days, with flights to and from Detroit, Atlanta, Chicago, and the Pacific Northwest. The aircraft is one of three G280s in Costco Wholesale's fleet, supplemented by a single G650ER for longer-range missions. The company's flight pattern suggests a high tempo of executive travel as it navigates tariff refund claims, AI-driven search optimization, and a stock that, despite record results, has slipped about 13 percent from its recent high, according to Barchart.