Austria’s Tyrolean Jet Services has replaced its Falcon 900B with a brand new Global Express. Managing director Martin Lener said: “The Global is a very impressive aircraft to be able to offer for charter.”

The Falcon 900B has now been taken off the company’s AOC. The aircraft had been with the company for 15 years, but since the mid-90s was operated in a sale and lease-back arrangement due to tax reasons. “We made a full evaluation of the Global and found for our geographical situation, in the middle of the Alps, it’s perfect. Here at Innsbruck Airport we have a short runway and we found that this aircraft performs better than most of its competitors in this situation,” said Lener. The airport has a GA terminal, where Tyrolean has its own hangar and JAR-145 maintenance facility.

Tyrolean’s fleet already includes a Citation VII and two 328 JETs, all of which are no older than 1999 models. “The Citation VII is an ideal aircraft for Europe, North Africa, the Gulf region and Russia. The 328 is also very popular for European travel; it has a shorter range, a very large cabin and with the two aircraft we can offer four different layouts,” he said.

The Global is owned by the company behind Tyrolean Jet Services. The 12-passenger aircraft recently had its interior completed with beige leather and seating can convert to four single beds and a full double bed. Inflight entertainment includes a stereo, DVD, CD, Airshow and multiple TFT flat screen displays.

“A brand new aircraft is very positive for our image and we found there was an increasing demand for charter at the higher end of the market. The 900 had a range of 3,900 nautical miles, but this was just a little too short to fly over to the east coast of the US. In the last three or four years we found potential charter clients had been looking for non-stop travel. We looked at the 900EX, the Challenger 604, and the GIV, but none really compare with the Global Express, which can fly over 6,000 nautical miles on one leg. Also, despite the fact that the Global is faster than the 900, there is not too much difference in the hourly charter rates,’ said Lener.

The company feels confident that it will easily adapt its operations to this aircraft. “We’ve been carrying out long-range operations to places such as Latin America and Asia with the 900 for the last 15 years, so we have a great deal of experience in this field.

“Regarding demand, obviously there has been a slowdown in the market; however we’ve been in this business since the mid-70s and we’ve survived several ups and downs.

“More recently these ups and downs have been coming along quicker and quicker and even in the last few weeks we’ve seen signs of things improving. GA has never been impacted more than in recent times, with 9/11 and more recently the outbreak of SARS. But with such

little money around, the market

has not received the expected upturn in demand.”