Sussex-based Airshare, which has recently launched a fractional leasing programme, says the project has generated such "tremendous interest" that it is having to place orders for other aircraft in advance of its business plan. Adam Strachan-Stephens, Airshare's business director, told EBAN: "The scheme has been in existence for three to four months, during which time we have been operating a single Citation jet. However we intend to invest in a fleet expansion fairly aggressively and we're looking at the types we want to order. The aircraft will be in both the lightweight and mid-size categories." \rFor the past three to four years, Airshare's managing director Peter Coyle, has been developing the fractional leasing concept. He has an RAF background and says Stephens, has now developed the concept to a point where Airshare has significant investors on-board to make a business of it. Looking at the type of customer with whom Airshare expects to do business, Stephens said: "I see there are basically two different markets here. One is the high net worth individual who would generally come from the sports or media fraternities. The other is the business person who either owns his own company or is a senior executive in a public company."\rWhich one of these categories is the more promising, it seems, is in some doubt. Stephens told EBAN: "We're not sure where the market is going in Europe but the US perspective of this is that it's coming from both areas, both the business area and the high net worth individual area. In Europe we're not entirely sure where that's going to come from but even a business that owns its own aeroplane, might be able to use our service. If they wanted to have more options without having to buy a whole new aircraft, they could buy or lease half an aircraft from us. So its actually useful for businesses with their own existing flight departments, as well."\rAirshare is currently offering two types of aircraft - the Citation jet and a Hawker. Stephens said: "When we need to supplement the aircraft that we've got, we charter and lease in as required, so we don't just rely on a single aircraft. If, for example, a company wanted to have a share in a Citation and a share in a Hawker because that fitted their business needs better (as opposed to say having a quarter share in a Hawker), then they can have a share in each aircraft. So you can match what you actually need for your business, to the aircraft that we have available." As with other fractional leasing schemes, Airshare asks for a monthly management fee and an hourly fee for occupied hours. "Unlike many other fractional schemes," says Stephens, "we don't charge for positioning. So if you need to be picked up where the aeroplane isn't, you get there on our account rather than yours."\rWhile it has taken the US fractional ownership movement 10-15 years to grow to its present position of relative maturity, Stephens says that due to the youthful nature of the UK's movement, Airshare's imminent plans will be positive but not over-ambitious. He said: "We're sucking and seeing what the market is doing. We intend to be acquiring aircraft ahead of the market demand. This will be very carefully timed because we don't want loads of aircraft and no customers. On the other hand, we think that with the quality of service that we want to give to our customers, we need to have the aircraft on the chocks as the customers come on-board. So we are to a certain extent leading the market, and letting the market tell us what it needs."\rEBAN asked Adam Strachan-Stephens where he thought Airshare's competition lay. He said: "Our competition is NetJets and Flexjets. We'd like to think that, for the moment, we are aggressively marketing our personal service. We believe firstly that small is beautiful and secondly that customers will see the benefits of a European, indeed British service, as opposed to a transformed North American service. So I think that our service is sufficiently different from theirs that the customers can identify the differences." One of Airshare's early clients is Lee Westwood. The Ryder Cup golfer said of Airshare's "outstanding" service: "To provide the convenience of hassle-free flying from my local airfield to the airfield nearest to the venue, is a huge benefit both to my preparation for the game and in the extra time I can spend at home with my family." Airshare says the basic unit of a share is an eighth but customers can lease anything up to eight eighths.