Big news taking flight! The Czachor family, founders of ASD – the leading funeral home answering service – are spreading their wings with a new venture: Cremation Air aerial scattering. This service helps funeral homes coordinate meaningful aerial ash scatterings over the sea, with flights piloted by ASD Family Member Owner Marty Czachor’s son, Andrew Czachor. We’re excited to be soaring into this next chapter and working with funeral homes in a whole new way.
For more than five decades, ASD has been the heartbeat of communication in the funeral profession. Around the clock, across every time zone, ASD has connected funeral directors to families in their moments of deepest need—helping them serve with empathy, precision, and care. Now, we are taking our commitment to funeral service to new heights—literally.
This year, ASD’s owners, the Czachor family, unveiled Cremation Air aerial scattering, a first-of-its-kind aerial scattering service created exclusively for funeral professionals. Merging ASD’s decades-long relationship with directors and the family’s passion for aviation, Cremation Air offers a dignified, fully trackable way to scatter cremated remains from an aircraft over U.S. coastal waters and other approved waterways.
It’s a natural evolution of ASD’s mission to support funeral homes with innovative tools that strengthen relationships with the families they serve.
“At ASD, we’ve always looked for ways to serve directors beyond the phone line,” says ASD Family-Member Owner Marty Czachor. “With Cremation Air aerial scattering, we’re extending that same trust skyward—helping funeral homes offer families something truly meaningful.”
Cremation Air didn’t begin as a business proposal—it began at home. ASD Family-Member Owners Marty, Kathy (Kelley), and Kevin Czachor have always shared an entrepreneurial drive and a passion for flight. Marty’s private plane became more than just a hobby—it turned into a family pursuit, with his son Andrew and daughter Jess both earning their pilot’s licenses. Over time, conversations in the hangar began to overlap with conversations about the funeral profession ASD has served for decades.
As cremation rates continue to rise nationwide (61.8% in 2024), funeral directors are seeking new, meaningful ways to serve families. The Czachors recognized an opportunity to connect their two worlds.
From those early discussions, Cremation Air was born—uniting the precision of aviation with the compassion and care that have always defined funeral service. Supported by ASD’s infrastructure, relationships, and reputation, Cremation Air was built not as a consumer product, but as a professional partner for funeral homes.
“Everything about this came from the heart of a family that understands the profession,” says Marty. “Our goal is to help directors offer something extraordinary to the families they serve.”
Cremation Air was designed from the ground up to empower funeral directors, not compete with them. Every order begins and ends with the funeral home, allowing directors to remain the family’s trusted point of contact while offering a service that few others can match.
- Order & Tracking: The director places an order and receives a unique barcode to track the cremains from receipt to scattering.
- Confirmation of Arrival: Cremation Air confirms the safe receipt of the cremains at its facility.
- Scheduling: The flight and scattering are scheduled, with full transparency to the funeral home.
- The Day of Flight: Notification is sent when the cremains are on board the aircraft.
- Completion & Tribute: After scattering, the director receives a personalized video tribute and certificate of scattering, complete with the date, time, and GPS location of the event, to give to the family.
Each carefully verified step ensures families experience peace of mind while directors maintain unwavering confidence in the process.
To ensure full accountability, Cremation Air maintains a barcoded chain-of-custody system, complies with USPS Cremated Remains Mailing regulations, and documents with the EPA each scattering with timestamped confirmation and GPS verification.
“We wanted to bring the same professionalism that families receive in every part of a funeral service into the air,” says Patrick Kane, Cremation Air’s Business Development Strategist, “covering every detail, paying extra attention to chain of custody communication, and having extreme accountability.”
When Cremation Air made its debut at the 2025 NFDA Convention in Chicago, the reaction from funeral professionals was swift and enthusiastic. Directors immediately saw the service not as a novelty, but as a practical and scalable way to meet the rising demand for aerial scatterings—while also helping funeral homes reclaim a meaningful revenue stream.
“Families have been inquiring about ocean scatterings for years,” one director said. “Now we have a partner we can trust to handle it properly.”
Cremation Air doesn’t replace a director’s process—it enhances it, helping funeral homes expand their services, strengthen family relationships, and stand out in a competitive market.
With operations currently based in Pennsylvania and Florida, Cremation Air focuses on ocean, gulf, and Great Lakes scatterings along the Eastern U.S. Expansion discussions are underway, with plans to bring the service to the Pacific Coast soon.
Beyond expansion, our team will continue to refine its systems and opportunities for co-branding with partner funeral homes.
From the family who made ASD the most trusted name in funeral communication comes a new way to honor life’s final journey. Cremation Air extends that same legacy of compassion, dependability, and forward thinking—this time, taking it to the skies.
For funeral directors, it’s a partnership that bridges heritage and progress. For families, it offers comfort in knowing their loved one’s story concludes as beautifully as it began—set free on the wind, carried across the horizon, into eternity.
To learn more about Cremation Air, be sure to visit the official website.
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