ON THE SOAPBOX for February features Mike Farge, CEO of executive jet services operator Club328. His company, based at Southampton Airport, was an exhibitor at last week”s Business Travel Show. That is his market.
”Executive jet travel is no longer elitist. It may be de rigueur for celebrities, royalty and Heads of State who demand the privacy, but increasingly, travel organisers and brokers are turning to private charter to maximise a client”s business trip.
You only have to look at the busy hub airports around Europe and the frequent departure boards displaying the message ”delayed” to see the appeal for business high fliers with an important deal to clinch. No surprise then that at Heathrow and Gatwick business aviation is diminishing. In contrast, London City Airport”s Jet Centre is booming with executive activity and Stansted, Luton and Farnborough (Hampshire) are all highly rated by those organising corporate travel, each offering 24/7.
With executive jet travel you use private terminals run by fixed base operators (FBOs), and the UK boasts 25 such organisations geared and ready to handle all private flight movements. Check-in time is minimal and you can be 100% sure that your bag ” carefully carried by an airport”s FBO representative to the aircraft ” will travel with you. You can pre-order what you want on board and let the executive jet company take care of all your onward ground transportation arrangements.
Flexibility is a major criterion in flying privately. You choose when you want to fly and where you want to fly from. If your meeting is running late, the jet will wait.
”Affluent and business - savvy travellers shy away from busy check-in queues and the scrum to get the best seats on the aircraft. First class on short haul is now a thing of the past and as a result, executive jets have come into their own,” says Tim Procter of Air Charter Ltd. Stephanie Mayes of High Flyer Charter concedes that corporates are definitely becoming more educated of the benefits of chartering and the huge differences of service compared with scheduled flights. As a result, there has been a notable increase in the number of private aircraft booked directly through the travel trade.
The UK is the second biggest market in Europe for business aviation after Germany. According to Aviation International News magazine there are currently some 250 business jets based in the UK (from a total number of 1,400 registered Europe-wide), plus another 60 business turboprops.
At last week”s Business Travel Show in London”s Olympia it was encouraging to see more and more trade visitors ask us to look at the viability of regular corporate shuttles. Currently, we have a Dornier 328 corporate turboprop with 15-seats dedicated to an Eindhoven shuttle from Southampton for a leading blue chip company running twice a week.
Without a doubt, these high-speed turboprops have found their niche in the business charter market of late, especially with rising fuel costs and with their unique ability to serve runway restricted airports. Independent turboprop operators Scot Airways and Eastern Airways, who offer a superior inflight product, and our sister company, EuroManx, supplement regular scheduled business services with sports charters at weekends, fulfilling a strong charter requirement for 30-plus seats.
When there are no scheduled services from regional airports even close to their HQ, corporate shuttle flights for personnel can be extremely cost effective. Sometimes, a shuttle route can become so successful it can develop into a scheduled service. OLT of Germany started out with a regular shuttle for Airbus employees from Bristol to Bremen. This is now a twice-daily Monday to Friday route, flown by Saab 2000 aircraft.
At Club328 we certainly have no aspirations to compete with the business model airlines, but we do want to work with and complement them. In the UK we are distinctive as a Dornier 328 operator ” with our jet and turboprop variants outfitted with 15 and 12 executive seats. We also fly three Hawker 125s with up to nine seats and two six seat Raytheon Premier 1 light jets with two more on the way.
We see a strong business case to help airlines position crews at short notice, giving them the flexibility of a dedicated aircraft. There may also be occasions when small numbers of passengers cannot fly with their booked operator, owing to operational reasons. We can assist there too.
Together with our corporate work, we are also seeing increased demand for high net worth individuals” bookings and our Raytheon Premier 1s, which joined the fleet in January, have been flying hard ” typically to Reims, Mallorca, Geneva and Frankfurt. Corporate hospitality will also be big business this summer and we hope to have a fair share of football charters flying to Germany for the World Cup. With hotel prices rocketing and even the budget carriers charging top dollar, we invite friends and colleagues to ”club” together and hire a Dornier 328 aircraft. Choose your UK departure airport, call us, and you could be on your way to a German city from just ”200 per person, per flight hour based on the full complement of 12 passengers travelling”.
http://www.club328.com
Mike Farge