If you drive 20 miles west of Copenhagen's main commercial airport, Kastrup, across the unfalteringly flat Danish countryside, you will arrive at the country's business aviation airport, Roskilde. Amid a sea of non-commercial aviation activity, is to be found the home of ExecuJet Scandinavia. \rEstablished two and a half years ago, ExecuJet's Scandinavian operation is well and truly up and running, advertising as it does, an all in one package which comprises a mixture of aircraft sales, maintenance, flight and charter operations. Henrik Burkal is, by title, ExecuJet Scandinavia's sales director. In reality, he is very much more than that. Under the leadership of md Christian Gravengaard at former employer Air Alpha, he helped bring the company to the brink of merger with ExecuJet South Africa - finally taking over the sales and organisational reins of the new product, ExecuJet Scandinavia, when the companies merged in November 1997. \r Having lived in South Yorkshire with his English wife for the past 9 years, Burkal's accent blends a gentle mixture of northern England and homespun Danish. EBAN caught up with Burkal at the company's Roskilde HQ, in an attempt to uncover the motives and the thinking behind ExecuJet Scandinavia. \rExecuJet Aviation Group, the mother company, has been in operation since 1991. While its main base is in South African, it has further operations in the Middle East and of course, in Denmark. So why Denmark? \r"It goes back to people and concepts," said Burkal. "Things in South Africa, both politically and economically, have been unstable in the past. There have been times when people were concerned about their assets in the country even though things have stabilised somewhat now. \r"The owners of ExecuJet wanted to have a foothold in a stable country and I don't think you'll find anywhere more stable in Europe than Denmark. The difference between right and left wing politics is not that great, we are not generally extremist here, it's civilised from a tax and accounting point of view, we have financial stability and a good workforce with excellent language skills." \rAdd to this a progressive, well-regulated, well-oiled aviation machinery, says Burkal, and you have ample reason to set up shop in Denmark. \rOver the years, the name ExecuJet has become synonymous with Bombardier and particularly over the past couple, with Flexjets Europe. It was back in 1991 that ExecuJet won the distributorship for Bombardier aircraft. Burkal said: "We are working very closely with our suppliers and most of all Bombardier. They have a heavy influence on what we are doing because they are our main supplier. \r"I would say we are also now in bed with them particularly because we have this joint venture with Flexjets Europe." ExecuJet's relationship with Bombardier started roughly a decade ago when major share-holder in the ExecuJet Aviation Group, Roux Marnitz, bought himself a Learjet to use for business purposes. \r"He thought they were fantastic and the best business aircraft available. \r"In addition, he found there was a need for the kind of service we now offer because he couldn't just buy the aircraft - he had to employ the pilots, find someone to clean the aircraft, contract the maintenance etc. He had to do so much to get it up and running that he decided to set up a company that does it all. \r"It was really his idea that gave birth to the ExecuJet concept - not as clearly maybe as it is today, but he just saw there was a need for that kind of service" \rLooking at ExecuJet's involvement with manufacturer Pilatus, Burkal said: "The company's neighbour down in Lanseria airport is the local Pilatus distributor and in South Africa you can fly commercial IFR with the PC-12. They saw it being very successful and started thinking about places they could set up a distributorship. \r"I think our chairman, Niall Olver, has been the main force behind us getting Pilatus." \rThe current situation situation in Scandinavia, as far as the PC-12 is concerned, is one of limited use. ExecuJet Scandinavia is only able to use it for demonstration and company flights, notching up about 120 hours last year. Nonetheless, said Burkal: "I hope it might only be a year before they release the commercial IFR - it's not 100 per cent certain yet but there's a lot of work going that way. \r"It's down to the national civil aviation authority to decide whether it's legal or not. In Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland it's okay for cargo, they're just holding fire on the passenger side." \r"Our hopes for the PC-12, if the commercial IFR issue is sorted out, are obviously to be able to sell a lot into the Scandinavian market. " \rIf you do a fleet analysis of Scandinavia's fleet, Burkal says that of 180 turbine aircraft, approximately 85 are King Airs. He said: "The King Air is an old aircraft and the costs of maintenance and operations are on the increase. That's where we see the PC-12 as the natural one to take over because its costs are so much less to operate. \r"But then there's the whole single engine issue which is the critical issue really to its future in Europe. They're selling like hot dogs in America, Canada, Africa and Australia - actually outselling the King Air. \r"Obviously, I'd like the authorities to approve it now so we can get on with transporting people. If you look at the statistics, the P&W PT-6 engine has safely notched up millions and millions of hours." When it comes to demo flights, be it a Learjet or otherwise, ExecuJet Scandinavia has a policy of not leaving the customer alone. Burkal says: "There's always the risk, that if you leave something as important as the demo flight to someone else, something will go wrong. If there's a noise he doesn't like or understand for example, at least if I know that, I can go from there. \r"Everything else might look right but if he's just thinking about the noise and I cannot kill that, there and then, there is less chance of selling the aircraft to him." \rBurkal says that ExecuJet Scandinavia's strength is to go beyond the product, to do more than just sell an aircraft. He said: "If you look at car manufacturers, they don't just sell you a car, they sell you some sort of lifestyle as well. There's a whole package to it nowadays. \r"We are doing the same thing: We investigate the needs of a potential aircraft customer and his needs, quite simply, are not to have to worry about it. \r"Clearly I want to sell him an aircraft but if I feel the best thing for him is to give him a contract with charter - let's say 80 hours a year - then it is my job to sell that solution to him. \r"I find that looking after the customer long-term is the only way forward. So, if he gets a second opinion from an independent consultant, for example, the consultant will come up with a very similar solution. He can then feel confident that I'm not just out there to sell him an aircraft. I'm there to solve his aviation needs. \rBurkal says that Bombardier hadn't really had a breakthrough in Scandinavia in the 15 years before ExecuJet Scandinavia arrived. Indeed, he confesses, it's only recently that sales have been picking up. Currently the fleet stands at two Lear 60s, one Lear 35A , one King Air 200 and one PC-12. \rEBAN asked Burkal whether it worried him that there are currently so many more Cessna aircraft in key areas like Scandinavia and Germany. Burkal said: "It worries me as much as a BMW dealer would worry about all the Fords out there. It would probably be a miracle to be outnumbering them but there are certain market segments where we are stronger and some where they are very strong. \r"If you look at the aircraft that they are actually selling out there in the market place, if you look at aircraft that are comparable to those that fly in our range, I think we actually outnumber them and I think the factories do as well. You'll probably find there are more Lear 60s than Citation VIIs going out. If you look at Lear 45s and Citation Excels, I think it's pretty much on a par." \rFor Burkal, the next step is to increase the company's charter sales 'so we get our utilisation maximised'. \rHe said: "The Executive Group has new bases to set up although we need to be more established in our existing areas first. "We are probably going to take more aircraft into operation in the next year or two, new types, and there's a lot of preparation for that. Training requirements, all the operational issues, we've got a lot of things to accomplish in the future - it certainly doesn't stop here." \rOf the competition, he commented: "We look at all the aircraft manufacturers as competitors, but we don't see the charter operators in the area as competitors. We work with them, provide them with back up with our aircraft and they do the same for us. The thing is, none of them has really combined the two areas as we have. \r"The possible disadvantage of what we are doing is that we are diluting our focus by going into so many areas but I think with the way we have structured our organisation here, with very strong intercommunications between the departments, we will only get better." \rFinally, said Burkal, there is one goal towards which ExecuJet Scandinavia will always be striving: "I don't want to do anyone down on the operation or maintenance side but the whole reason why we've done all this is to support the aircraft sales. After all, that's what we're here for."