Eurojet Aviation has re-registered a Citation 500 that it has had since August 1996.

The company took the aircraft out of service last summer, but towards the end of the year decided to begin operating it again, after fitting a brand new interior and respraying the exterior, as well as changing the registration of the aircraft, in order to mark a very special event.

Commercial and operations manager Mike Hollick explained

the reasons behind the recent developments at Eurojet.

“We’ve just gone back into service with the Citation 500 and we changed the registration at the beginning of the year,” he said.

“The letters were chosen to reflect the initials of our managing director Graeme Campbell’s new baby son – Jonathan Toby Neil Campbell – who arrived shortly just before Christmas!

“We haven’t taken on any new aircraft for a while,” he said, “but we do always have our eyes open to new possibilities or opportunities.”

The 500 was out of service for quite a while. It reportedly needed a lot of work and the company did not really know whether it was viable to put it back into service.

Towards the end of last year, the decision was made to refurbish it and to put it back into operation.

“With the interior, we added new carpets and new seats,” he said. “We chose leather seats in the style

of those onboard the Citation Bravo aircraft.

“The original interior of the 500 had been quite an old design, but this step has really modernised

it. We also updated the refreshment facilities onboard.

“With regards to the exterior,” he continued, “we have had it completely resprayed white to

look sleek, but yet still keeping things fairly simple.”

According to Hollick, the aircraft has been generating quite a lot of interest since the beginning of

the year.

“The charter market seems to be quite buoyant,” he said. “It’s at the bottom-end of the market price-range and that seems to be attracting people at the moment.”

Recent operations include short trips into Europe and the company has bases in Dublin, so there has been quite a few trips between the United Kingdom and Ireland.

“We have had interest from both new and existing customers

and there was definitely high customer demand for the aircraft to be brought back into service again,” he concluded.

Eurojet also has a Cessna 560XL, two Cessna 550Bs and one Eurocopter EC-120 in its fleet. With its main base in Dublin, the company operates widely throughout Europe and occasionally to North Africa and the Middle East.