Air Taxi has purchased a King Air 200 from Regourd Aviation. Ground operations manager Jean Pierre Florent said: “The company chose the King Air because it suits our needs perfectly. The range of the aircraft is around 1,500 nautical miles and the cabin holds between seven and nine passengers, depending upon our configuration.”

Air Taxi is based in Tours, France and operates as a charter company concentrating solely on a French client base. The company has already made a number of domestic and international flights, particularly cross-channel, including: Oxford, Inverness and Farnborough. Customers are generally vips, ranging from corporate executives to private individuals and celebrities. “The French charter market is not very strong at the moment. I don’t really know what has led to the present climate but it is possibly the influence of the US market,” explained Florent. When asked why the company had chosen a particularly slow time to purchase an aircraft, Florent replied: “If a company cannot offer a sufficient number of aircraft for charter then customers will look elsewhere. We bought the aircraft despite market conditions, because we are hoping and expecting for a rise in demand in the foreseeable future.”