Turkish telecoms company, Telsim, has sold its Challenger 601 and will soon pick up a 604 model in its place. As with the Global Express the company currently operates, the Challenger 604 will not be used for charter purposes.

Taking care of all the arrangements is flight management company, Gozen Air Services. Spokeswoman Veronique Guevel told EBAN: “They’ve had a Global Express since March 2000 and they are pretty happy with it.

They thought of swapping the Challenger 601 for a second Global Express but finally decided against it.

“While they fly very occasionally to Asia and the Far East, they don’t fly long-range all the time, so the 604 made more sense. They often carry out flights to the US.”

Use of the aircraft, said Guevel, isn’t so much for company purposes as personal purposes. She said: ”It is only the owners who use the aircraft for business and holiday trips.

They are not at the disposal of the general manager of the company or his staff.”

Asked about the current financial climate in Turkey, Guevel said that Gozen was one of few Turkish

air charter companies to be unaffected by the country’s recent economic crisis.

She said: “Gozen has not been affected by the downturn in the economy and we even opened our own airline at the beginning of April 2001.

“Many companies have gone bankrupt recently because of the economic crisis, or have been shut down by the government. Where any of these companies have aircraft, for the most part they have been sent back to the US.”

Guevel says that the Turkish currency lost nearly half its value towards the end of February and that it could be September before the country is properly back on its feet again.

She added: “Everybody’s on standby at the moment. It is unlikely that many more aircraft will

be ordered until we are out of this situation.”