Germany's Diamond Aircraft Service says its been experiencing a very good year because more people are going back to used aircraft, rather than buying new ones.

Said company md Wolfgang Krombach: "We bought a King Air 300 last week quite cheaply and we will be in a position to sell it in around four weeks' time. There's a lot of work to do; we have to overhaul the engines, put in a new interior and repaint it.

"We will be able to sell it quite quickly because we have a lot of people who are interested in this aircraft. In some businesses, for example IT, the economy is really bad so companies are having to sell their aircraft. If I can buy an aeroplane cheaply at the moment, I'm buying it."

Diamond says it is also working on a Cheyenne 1 and Cheyenne 1A at present. The company says there is not a great deal of competition in this line of business from other companies in Germany because most companies are not in a position to buy aircraft.