As EBAN goes to press, Austria-based GlobeAir has almost doubled its Citation fleet up to 11 Mustangs for commercial use.

"For months my team has been working very hard to get everything done and to make the five new aircraft fit for the AOC," says ceo Bernhard Fragner. "We have doubled nearly everything: team, crew, sales network, maintenance support and everything else, like the IT system."

"Within Europe GlobeAir now holds a 26-30% market share of commercial movements within our peer group of very light jets (Mustang, Phenom 100, Eclipse, CJ1+)," he adds.

GlobeAir will be at the EBACE show in Geneva to promote its expanded fleet, but also to announce that it believes it is the first operator to be certified by Wyvern and IS-BAO.

The five additional aircraft are pre-owned, and were manufactured during 2009 and 2010. "We flew them all together with take-offs in sequence every three minutes for the delivery to Linz airport," said company cmo Mauro De Rosa.

The aircraft will not have fixed bases, in common with the rest of the fleet, rather remaining wherever most recently flown. The availability of a larger fleet is now expected to reduce ferry legs still further, and consequentially costs and prices.

Founded in 2007, GlobeAir has been one of the world's fastest growing light jet operating companies. By 2010 it was already the fifth busiest among the world's all-Citation fleets.

The company reports that it has been investing a lot of resources on safety and quality audits. It was approved by Wyvern in December, and achieved IS-BAO best practice accreditation, thanks to the help of flight operations manager Georg Bernhofer.