DaimlerChrysler has recently added two Citation X aircraft to its fleet.

Director of sales and marketing Jonas Kraft told EBAN: “We chose to manage the two Citation X aircraft because they’re a good fit between the Challenger and the Learjet segment,” he said. “We will also be acquiring one Citation I and two Citation IIs. We already have the Citation I in operation, but are awaiting the other aircraft.”

DaimlerChrysler has already begun operating with one of the Citation Xs and the other aircraft is due to be available for charterin November.

Kraft believes that it will appeal to the German company’s customers. “It’s a very quiet aircraft and it’s also very fast, which is a good combination,” he explained. “We imagine that it will be very popular.”

DaimlerChrysler intends to fly the Citation Xs for European and transatlantic flights. “We are quite flexible worldwide,” Kraft told us. “We fly to Africa, to the Near-East and Far-East, wherever a client wants to go.”

The company plans to use the aircraft for charter operations only.

The company has a clear business plan for the months ahead. “Well, it’s been a big step for us going from eight to 13 aircraft,” Kraft said. “The next step is to start running these five new aircraft, which will be our main focus for the next six months.

“The particularly good thing is that we have a big variety of different aircraft from the Airbus 319, Global Express, Challenger, Falcon 2000, Citation X, Learjet 60, Citation II to the Citation I,” he said. “We have eight different categories and all these aircraft have their specific assets.”

The company runs a shuttle service, which is reportedly doing very well. “We are flying five times a week between Stuttgart and Pontiac, Michigan and once a week between Stuttgart and Vitoria, which is north of Spain,” he said.

“The European charter market seems like it’s buoyant at the moment. We have had a growth of demand,”

he continued.

“Of course we have also had bad weeks during the Iraq War, when there was less demand and we also see

that the cycles between demand and low-demand are very short. One week it is up, the next it is slightly down and so on.”