Press Release
Issued by CEPA (Central Europe Private Aviation).
September 4, 2013
Central and eastern European aircraft operators have commented on their current business activity and what they feel the climate for development is in their regions, ahead of the 4th CEPA (Central European Private Aviation) Expo in November.
CEPA, the organisation established to assist the development of business aviation between central, eastern and western Europe has been speaking to operators, airports, MRO, insurers, financiers, and manufacturers, amongst others, in preparation for the Expo to be held in the Congress Centre in Prague on the 26-28th November. Grossmann Jet Service, ABS Jets, FlyJet and Opera Jet are amongst the operators that will be involved in the Expo this year and who have given feedback to the organisers on their businesses.
Dagmar Grossmann, ceo of Prague based operator Grossmann Jet Service, commenting on the market said “Recently many manufacturers have placed representatives into each of the central European countries, which shows that there is a huge potential in the new aircraft market as well as for the pre-owned. At the same time, the external speed of cultural growth enables the market to grow due to the fact that more and more people see the business jet as a serious alternative to other modes of transport. This acceptance is very important and is the base of future business in the region. The growth of Commerce in the region is still relatively young and therefore there is a huge opportunity for it to be transformed into the perfect environment for healthy and new business for operators”.
Ceo of Prague and Bratislava based ABS Jets, Mr Vladimir Petak, commented ''Business aviation shows us today that despite some of the forecasts, due to the economic instability of Europe, the growth rate of the industry is not like it was supposed to be couple years ago. Business aviation in North America is still way ahead of us. ABS Jets has focused, in this economically unfavourable time, on optimising costs and personnel stabilisation. Our results are positive and beyond expectations and in terms of aircraft chartering we can confirm an increase of 12% in the total number of charter flights we operated in last 2 years, which goes in hand to hand with the increased number of aircraft available on Czech and Slovak charter market. The highest demand we recorded was for very light Jets such as Mustang and Phenom 100. It is important to also note that our entry level charter customers have started to use bigger aircraft more often”.
Maciej Matuszewsk, of Warsaw based FlyJet said,“The Russian and Ukrainian markets in particular are quite strong at this time and the local clients definitely prefer bigger aircraft. However, in comparison to last year, we have recently felt a much stronger effort on the part of the clients and brokers to negotiate on price and request discounts“.
Sales manager of Bratislava based Opera Jet, Martina Jakubova added “Two thirds of our clients are represented by Russian customers. They are satisfied with the type of aircraft our company offers and they are usually interested in flying in between Russia and central Europe“.
Statistics from the past two years showed that there was a total of 1,422 business jet and turboprop aircraft in the central European Union, which includes Germany (685), Switzerland (300) and Austria 270. There were 58 aircraft in the Czech Republic, 42 in Poland, 25 in Slovenia, 19 in Slovakia and 15 in Hungary. The market was dominated by light jets and turboprops operators had an average of three aircraft.
Today the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland have up to 10 business jets registered outside of the CEE region; mostly in the US, Aruba or The Isle of Man. There are 19 AOC holder approved for commercial operations registered in the Czech Republic.
This year the CEPA Expo will include an additional day which will look at the synergies between commercial and business aviation and the things that business sectors can learn from each other.
