Air Mercia has opened an FBO at Wolverhampton Business Airport, the first of its kind to grace the West Midlands airport. It has also commenced air taxi services with its fleet of business aircraft.

Ops director Phil Pardoe told EBAN: “We have been operating both a flying school and commercial training centre here for some time and we believe there’s a demand in the region from the business community for an air taxi service.”

Pardoe says these developments have been in the planning stage for about two years, when the company first had the idea of establishing a scheduled passenger service between the West Midlands and London City.

He said: “We’ve had discussions with London City and there are slots available to us. Our marketing research suggests there’s a groundswell of support for a service between the West Midlands and London City, as there is to other regions in the UK.

“We’re currently waiting for the airport owners and operators to upgrade the air traffic security and navigation aids that would be required to establish a scheduled passenger service. In the interim, we’re carrying out bespoke passenger charter services.”

Air Mercia hasn’t taken a final decision on what aircraft it would use for this proposed service but says a Dornier 228 and Bandeirante have been evaluated so far. Said Pardoe: “Commencement of the service is dictated by the airport operators here and to be fair to them, some of the arrangements that they have to put in place is beyond their control. The service is probably 18 months away.”

Air Mercia’s FBO offers parking, passenger reception, flight planning facilities for crew, weather, met services, crew rest-room and ‘the normal business services available to passengers in a corporate aviation centre’. The runway length is 1,200 metres, allowing Air Mercia to handle aircraft up to King Air 350 size.

Asked about the potential competition which may ensue with any FBOs at nearby airports, Pardoe said: “Wolverhampton Business Airport is a sub-regional airport and we’re certainly not competing with the likes of Birmingham, which is obviously the nearest rival. We’re certainly not going to encroach on Coventry, which is literally the other side of Birmingham.”

On the air charter front, Air Mercia operates a Seneca V, a PA31 Chieftain, a Citation, an Agusta 109 and one Bell 206 and one 407. What’s more, the company is expecting a Piaggio Avanti P180 to come onstream by October of this year. The aircraft will be managed on behalf of a private client and follows the analysis of six possible aircraft to suit the UK client’s mission profile.

Said Pardoe: “We chose three turboporps and three entry-level jets and did a basic analysis for the client based on availability, costs of acquisition. Costs of operation, depreciation, insurance, range speed and so on. The Avanti, which will be used for intra-European and intra-US missions, compared extremely favourably with the entry-level jets.”

Air Mercia’s client has estimated private use of about 200 hours a year and has indicated that once it's possible to operate it under the company’s AOC on a G registration, he’s looking at acquiring a second one. Air Mercia estimates that it may take 12 months to get the aircraft onto a UK registration.