Charter company Goldeck-Flug has begun operating a Hawker 800XP, on behalf of an Austrian businessman. The owner has had the aircraft for about a year, recently deciding to change management company from another Austrian charterer.

Quality manager and technical pilot, Friedrich Pontasch, told EBAN: “We needed a midsize business jet in our fleet because of the expanding market and this was a good opportunity for us to realise that

goal. The owner flies approximately three to four times a month and the rest of the time, the aircraft is available for charter.”

Goldeck says it is relatively new to the midsize business jet market, despite already having a Learjet 55 in its fleet. Other fleet members include a Citation 501, Citation 560, a 560 Ultra and a Bell 206 JetRanger.

The 800XP has been quite busy since joining Goldeck at the beginning of October, as Pontasch told us: “We’ve done quite a lot of work this month but for the time being, we haven’t carried out any long-range flights.

“We’ve completed flights that we normally do with the Citations and the Learjet, which means

within Europe and in particular southeast Europe.”

It appears the former Yugoslavian countries are very popular among businessmen at the moment, and in particularly among finance people. As economies and infrastructures are rebuilt, western money is proving of great value.

Said Pontasch: “A lot of bankers are travelling there, and also a lot of industry people. Slovenia will be joining the EU next year and after that Croatia, so it’s a growing market for us around here. We also have a lot of flights to Serbia and Bosnia.”

With a range of 2,500nm, Goldeck’s Hawker 800XP is expected to pick up charters heading beyond Europe, in particular to the Middle East. The aircraft has a stand-up cabin, stewardess service and full entertainment system including Airshow.

Its major selling point, insists Goldeck, is its ability on all types of runway. Pontasch remarked: “It

has very impressive shortfield performance, which has been of great use in the former Yugoslav countries, and with such a good range, it has the racing legs to do trips like Moscow-Malaga or Moscow-Madrid.

“What’s more, we have appointed it with five comfortable chairs and a sofa that sits three – which means, if there are only two or three people in the party, one can sleep on the couch.”

In the week in which Goldeck broke the story to EBAN, the company was also busy signing

up to Avinode’s web service in order to encourage some more broker business.

Said Pontasch: “We just signed the contract this week. We have no experience of it yet but in our opinion, everyone who wants to be a presence on the international business charter market, has to join such a type of software.”

In terms of cost, Goldeck says its 800XP is very competitively-priced despite a lack of true competition in the area. The company is located in Klagenfurt, south Austria, which has a population of around 100,000 and is approximately 30 minutes’ car journey from both the Italian and Slovenian borders. Graz is roughly 100 kilometres away, Salzburg 130 and Lubiana 70kms.

Pontasch explained: “We have a kind of special market here because we are not competing against Vienna. In the Viennese market, you have JetAlliance, Grossmann Air Service and Comtel for example, so there are a lot of business jet operators.

“But here in Klagenfurt, south Austria, we are the only operator and we have tried to focus our business on our local market, especially in terms of travelling to the former Yugoslav countries and Eastern Europe.

“I would say about 40 per cent of our customers are from the local region, i.e. south Austria, 30 per cent are from other parts of the country and the rest are from Italy and Croatia.”

The Hawker is the first Raytheon-built aircraft in Goldeck’s fleet but for Pontasch, this is not a problem. He said: “We have a very good technical department and we do most of our technical work with Jet Aviation, so we’ve had no problems implementing a new aircraft. We did the type-rating at SimuFlite, who did an excellent job in my opinion, and in the opinion of the pilot this is an excellent, pilot-made aircraft.”

The only helicopter in Goldeck’s fleet, a Bell 206 JetRanger, is used for connections from Klagenfurt airport to places in the Austrian Alps. Not only does this assist those heading to the mountains for skiing holidays, it is also used by businessmen who wish to save time travelling by car around the slow and winding mountain roads.