Flying Group has opened brand new premises at Antwerp Airport to house a clutch of new additions to its fleet. The building has hangar space for two Dassault Falcon 900/2000s, extra office space, plus passenger and pilot lounges. “We already had our home base in Antwerp but needed more space for the Falcon 900C being delivered in three weeks. Also on order are two new Bravos which will be arriving around the same time. We now have the facilities to handle other operators flying into Antwerp, which has become a real centre for business aviation in Europe,” said marketing manager Ben Paindavin.

Flying Group is the umbrella organisation for Flying Service and Flying Partners, which incorporates charter brokering, handling, maintenance and fractional programmes. “Fractional ownership is now the biggest part of our business and the Bravos have been bought with this intention in mind. They will contribute towards our fleet renewal programme, as will a Citation Excel we are having delivered within the next six months,” explained Paindavin.

“The Citation Bravo is fantastic for travelling to East and West Europe, North Africa and Russia. It’s the ideal aircraft for us and of course we are a certified Cessna main-tenance facility, which helps keep our costs down,” he added.

The Falcon 900C will be used exclusively by one client, and necessitated Flying Group earning approval to become Falcon operators. “In my opinion, Cessna doesn’t really have a transcontinental aircraft – even the Citation X isn’t really suitable. We had a client who needed this service, so we bought the aircraft for him to use. Nevertheless, it also opens us up to a new market and hopefully we will soon have a second Falcon to offer,” said Paindavin.

The fleet renewal programme is in part a response to competition from other larger fractional operators. Paindavin explained: “I think our business would suffer if we didn’t undertake this because over the last year NetJets and Flexjet have been attacking the European market. We may not be as big as them, but we are much cheaper and offer more flexibility.”