Irish singing star, Chris de Burgh, stopped off on his way to Hamburg to officially launch a new business aviation centre at Dublin Airport, part of a significant investment at the airport by Menzies Aviation Group that, the company says, has already created a number of new jobs in the local community.

Execair, Menzies’ dedicated business aviation company, operates the centre.

In the last year, Dublin has taken over as the busiest station in Execair’s European network, handling more than 3,500 flights.

The company provides business aviation customers help with landing permission, parking allocation, customs and immigration, flight planning, weather briefings, courtesy transport for passengers and crew, car rental, limousine bookings, catering and hotel reservations.

Ops director Alex MacDonald said: “Dublin is fast becoming one of the world’s most popular business aviation gateways with regular flights to and from destinations throughout the UK, Europe and the United States. As Ireland continues to attract more inward investment from companies around the world, we are confident this trend will continue.”

The official opening was a trip down memory lane for Chris de Burgh. He was the first ever customer of the former Parc Aviation Handling at Dublin in 1990.

Menzies acquired Parc at the end of 2001 and has totally refurbished its business aviation facilities to bring them in line with the company’s 11 other stations in Europe, including Shannon.