One company looking forward to single engine certification in Europe is Denmark’s Benair. Commercial manager Mogens Thomsen, said: “We’re about to deliver a Cessna Caravan 208, but at the moment it’s not very easy to sell Caravans due to the certification problems.

“If the situation around Europe follows the Scandinavian lead, whereby we can fly single engine IMC cargo, then sales of both Caravans and PC-12s will definitely increase.

“I certainly think that some people are buying the PC-12 at the moment in the hope that certification will be pushed through.”

The company says it has had a number of enquiries since the beginning of the year; the Caravan in particular has been appealing to the smaller air freight companies. “The Caravan is ideal for freight because it’s a workhorse.

“It can also be used for passengers on small scheduled routes, where you’re only flying 100 nautical miles at a time. It’s basically very reliable and doesn’t need too much maintenance. Here at Benair we

have between 50 and 60,000 flight hours’ experience and the 208 has proved almost 100 per cent reliable,” said Thomsen.

Benair’s sales mainly centre around Scandinavian customers. “Our company is not hit too hard by economic slowdowns, because we always anticipate them. Just like the bible says, we have seven good years followed by seven bad years and this is one of the bad years.

“Last year when the problem between Bush and Sadam Hussein started, we knew we were about to enter another slowdown. To overcome this we focus on the marketplace which we have experience in, then we know we can make a certain amount of money. Our particular niche is the light air cargo freight market; aircraft under two tonnes.

“If the single engine IMC is pushed through then we might sell a few aircraft over the next

year, otherwise I think it’s going to be tough.

“We have just about sold all the aircraft we can in Scandinavia and the market is now drying up. A number of people are sitting there with good ideas but are afraid to follow them through, because they don’t know what will happen in the future,” added Thomsen.