Switzerland’s Servair will start oper-ating a Falcon 2000, on behalf of one of its private owners, in the next few weeks. The owner will use the aircraft for business trips to Eastern Europe and for pleasure, to North America.

EBAN spoke to md Martin Helbling, who said the aircraft – which will also be offered for charter – would neatly complement the company’s existing Citation Excel and Citation 550. He said: “It’s always been a part of our business plan and a dream of the company to get all the different types of aircraft – small, medium and large. We had the luck to find a person who was willing to buy an aircraft in that category and was willing to let it be operated by us.”

Asked why the owner chose the Falcon 2000, Helbling said: “The decision came straight from the heart. He travelled in it just the once and told me ‘that’s the aircraft I want’.

“As is normal, I explained the advantages and disadvantages, and told him about competitor aircraft. But I would say, at the end, it was purely a decision of the heart – the feel of the aircraft and the appearance on the ramp won him over. The technology behind Falcons is a very convincing argument, anyway.”

As this is a new market sector for Servair, Helbling says the company will take things one step at a time. The first phase will involve investigating the range, landing and take-off performance of the aircraft and seeing how well the aircraft sells on the charter market.

Once these things are assessed, Servair is planning to have Cat 3 in place – Zurich being a particularly foggy airport – and then to increase the range of the aircraft, which by the book currently stands at 3,000nm.

Asked about the company’s present experiences in the charter market, Helbling explained: “We’ve had a good start and things look very promising for this year.”