Irish Air Transport (IAT) has been making use of its second Learjet 60, delivered brand new from Bombardier’s Tucson facility, in mid-June. One thing which has particularly impressed ceo Neil Hansford is the technical reliability of the aircraft.

He told EBAN: “When we did the ferry flight out of Tucson into Dublin, there was nothing on the tech log. I’ve never done that in my life.

“I’ve never had an aircraft with nothing on the tech log on the delivery flight – straight out of the factory, straight after a two-hour proving flight.”

While IAT is owned by Scotland’s Corporate Jets, the Learjet 60s have been certified on the Irish register and are based in Dublin.

Additional to the portfolio of Corporate Jets – which flies for Jaguar Racing – the aircraft are then also marketed by IAT, which means they get substantial utilisation. Said Hanford: “The people who are using it at the current time are Jaguar Racing, obviously, and high net worth individuals.”

Asked whether the aircraft have been making use of their full range, Hansford said: “No. The majority of our work is from southern England down to southern France, Turkey, Greece and Moscow. However, the 400 miles over the Lear 45 does come into play if you start going into North Africa.”

Neil Hansford’s history, like that of many of the staff at IAT, is in large aircraft. His major experience was with the BAe 146 and the majority of his pilots are more mature in their years, coming as they do from careers in heavy aircraft.\r

So what’s the incentive for them? Said Hansford: “The commercial world has changed dramatically and they don’t want to be bus drivers anymore. They're actually being forced to work for a living.

“It works very well with the clients and very well with the performance of the aircraft.”

IAT’s other Learjet 60 was delivered in October of last year. Said Hansford: “We’re happy with the 60s. The bigger cabin is popular because some of our customers don’t like the smaller profile cabin.

“The aircraft are very high specification as far as the fit in the cabin is concerned; and as far as the flight deck is concerned, it has its full range of equipment. There was nothing not specified on them.”

Asked whether IAT had experienced any problems since operating the 60s, Hansford said: “We broke the back of RVSM very early.

“Because we come out of Prestwick regularly, we wanted to be RVSM-approved straight away and the computers certainly were far from up to the mark. I think one aircraft has had four computers in it to hold the RVSM requirement.”

Irish Air Transport also operates a Chieftain from its Dublin base, which carries out medevac and government work.

The company does a lot of heart and lung transplant flights, particularly from Dublin to Newcastle. The Chieftain was fully refurbished at a cost to IAT of over £100,000 last Christmas.