Chauffair has taken delivery of a Citation Excel which will soon be available for charter. The aircraft is an addition to a fleet already comprising three Hawkers, a Citation II and a Citation V. Said company md, Nick Probett, “The Excel will be chartered and involved in our Chauffair share programme, which offers fractional leasing. This aircraft is perfect for European operations. It’s very quiet, comfortable and it has a good range. There is a great deal of baggage space, it’s economical to operate and it has a stand-up cabin.

“All in all, the Excel has tremendous passenger appeal.” The company believes that typical flights will last around one and a half hours: “In the US the aircraft has been popular, but one thing they don’t like about it is the lack of coast to coast range. Nevertheless for Europe it doesn’t matter, because it’s very rare to fly for four and a half hours,”

The majority of Chauffair’s clients are wealthy, private individuals, many of whom own their own companies. Aircraft are chartered for both business and leisure reasons, although Chauffair said that most of their work concerns private trips. “My plan is to move to an all stand-up cabin fleet of Hawkers and Excels, the Hawker fits in the fleet well along with the Excel,” added Probett.

Probett commented on the post- September 11 situation: “I think the charter market is up somewhat, although not as much as the US. The UK business jet world has not been affected like the airlines, in fact you can’t really compare the industries. The economic downturn had previously weakened the market and since the tragedy its picked our market up a little, mainly due to the security aspect.”

The company proposes to buy more Excels in the future. Probett admitted: “In a perfect world I’d have nothing but Excels.”