Flexjet Europe's director of sales and marketing, Jürgen Viethen, has warned anyone thinking of starting up their own fractional scheme to tread very carefully. In a recent interview with EBAN, Viethen said: "It's not as easy as a lot of operators think. If you don't meet your targets, it's a very costly business to operate and under-utilise an aircraft. You have to have the aircraft ready for each customer when they want it, which might mean coping with multiple demands in one day.

"It is very difficult for smaller operators to get into this industry. People really have to do their homework before they launch a scheme like this."

One very real source of competition for the Flexjet Europe scheme is NetJets. Viethen said: "When we entered the market, we knew a little bit about what they were doing, what their difficulties were. We also knew that the market was reacting very slowly so we weren't quite sure what the reaction to our new product would be.

"We are really excited by the level of interest we have generated and have been starting to market the programme in the UK, basically from November onwards."

Within Europe, it appears that the UK has been the quickest to embrace the Flexjet concept. Apart from the obvious advantages of a common language, Viethen said: "It is of prime importance that, culturally-speaking, England lies somewhere between the continent and the US.

"That means that a new idea is more easily embraced in the UK than it is in the rest of Europe. For example, I have had a couple of meetings in the UK and a couple in Germany. In the UK, I talk about benefits; in Germany, I talk about cost."

Having recently opened offices in Munich and Paris, Flexjet is clearly beginning to spread its wings. What's more, said Viethen: "Staff in these offices are not just focusing on the people in that country, it's more a language-based market approach.

"We have received very good feedback from Germany, France, Monaco and Switzerland."

As concerns the users of Flexjet's Lear 31A, Lear 60 and Challenger offering, Viethen said that roughly half have either never been in a business jet before or have flown just once or twice. He said: "Basically, you can say that these are people on the move. They have sold their businesses, experienced a rapid growth or have experienced expansion into foreign countries, and all of a sudden their previous travel arrangements are not sufficient any more.

"They like the look and comfort of our aircraft, they know Bombardier is behind it and that makes them feel very safe."

Other customers tend to have had charter experience before. Asked whether Flexjet actively discourages potential clients from using charter, Viethen said: "Not at all. I think that is something that distinguishes us from NetJets.

"We don't tell people that charter is not good because we sell a lot of aircraft to charter operators and we don't want to be in competition with them. We look at the travel profile, explain whether charter or fractional ownership would be cheaper and leave the decision up to the customer.

"If someone flies 300 hours or more, then we might recommend the purchase of a whole aircraft and pass this lead onto our whole aircraft sales people.

"Of course we hope they will use a Bombardier product - I think that's more than fair to try to suggest that. A couple of times, in conjunction with our partner ExecuJet we have devised a joint solution: You buy a certain number of block charter and you buy a share in Flexjet, because it's a different product.

"So we basically work as consultants and that makes us very believable in our arguments."

With regard to the size of the fractions, Flexjet says it doesn't push for larger shares because it's easier to ask for another share than to reduce your amount. Said Viethen: "Since we don't need to deliver a physical aircraft any more, you can upgrade from today to tomorrow. It gives the people real flexibility."

Viethen added: "If we see a need arising for something in between or on top of the Challenger, we can easily react to that."Clients include two 'very famous' athletes, who started with smaller ownership fractions.