Air charter and private aircraft operators all over Europe who might find themselves flying to the London area during summer next year need to be planning carefully already. So urged Trevor Jones of Gama Aviation during the recent BGAD show.

The imposition of restricted areas and temporary flight routings, the requirement for slots at normally unregulated airports, and the general level of anticipated congestion, will all lead to challenging conditions. Anyone approaching Farnborough from the south, says Jones, will need to allow an additional 15 to 20 minutes on their trip time, as well as accounting for nearest available alternates being further afield. For some aircraft this might have implications for available payload and range.

Additional slots and extended airport operational times will be made available, but those with experience of previous major events, such as Cedric Migeon of ExecuJet, wonder whether the provision might fall well short of demand.

And managing customer expectations is going to be difficult. Airport slots might well become virtually unobtainable as the Games approach, and those who wish to travel to the sporting action itself might find little alternative than to make the final leg of their journey on public transport. Helicopter access is going to be difficult, given the organisers’ commitment to hosting a ‘green Games’.

But early planning can help. Migeon says that during the World Economic Forum his Zurich FBO contracts with hire car companies well in advance to ensure there will be available limousine transport, and negotiates monthly rather than ad-hoc billing with key ground suppliers to save on admin during busy periods. Staff levels are increased, and work respon-sibilities reallocated to cope with peaks in demand. After the final whistle of the World Cup Final itself hundreds of passengers were looking for hundreds of aircraft – and so needed to have been told the tail number to look for, he says. Chaos can easily ensue in the absence of carefully planned and implemented systems.

Gama Aviation says it has internal teams in place to plan for next summer's challenges, and I would think this is a first step that all operators ought to consider sooner rather than later.

David Wright Managing editor