A new Citation Excel is now making regular trips from London’s Stansted Airport to Ancona. The purpose of the flights is to enable the owner to keep tags on a five-storey yacht his development company is building on Italy’s east coast.

The owner of the aircraft is one Andreas Panyioutou, who founded his company, The Ability Group, back in 1996. The operator is London Executive Aviation, whose md George Galanopoulos is good friends with Panayiotou. The friendship moved on to a professional level several years ago, when Galanopoulos introduced his friend to the ways of business aviation.

Panayiotou told EBAN: “I didn’t know much about corporate aircraft to begin with and LEA were really very helpful. It’s like going into a minefield of a thousand different aircraft but George basically held my hand and started explaining everything.

“We compared one aircraft with another, which were best for the charter market, the pricing involved when you let it out, and so on.”

Panayiotou’s first aircraft was a Citation II, which he bought a couple of years back. He explained: “Once we started building the ship in Italy, I began travelling to Ancona once or twice a month. When it dawned on me that I could spend two days out of the office flying with commercial airlines, or one day with a private jet, I started calculating the figures for the latter.”

The figures looked attractive at the time and, says Ability Group’s group chairman, still look good now.

“Firstly you’ve got to have a need for these things,” he explained, “and then, financially-speaking, it has to stand up on its own. I don’t assume that the aircraft will make huge amounts of profit but when I weigh it up at the end of the year, it does make some profit. And of course, I get all the business use out of the aircraft.

“With its stand-up cabin, I find the Excel very good value for money – particularly compared with like aircraft – and also the charter price is reasonable enough that it attracts a lot of custom. Since I bought the Excel, I myself am using the Citation II less but the aircraft is chartering phenom-enally well and keeps very busy.”

Panayiotou says he’s not using the Citation Excel just for trips to Italy. One of the business arms of The Ability Group is Ability Developments, which deals in property, development and investment. For this side of the business, Panayiotou makes trips up to Scotland to meet with banks and also uses the aircraft for other business outings. One recent trip involved a big property fair in Cannes, France.

“I flew over with three of my top guys at Ability,” he said, “and I also had a banker with me as well. Everyone in the property business flew in on scheduled flights, all arriving at different times of the day. Whereas we flew in, did our business, and were there and back in one day.

“It gives people the impression, which is a true one, that you don’t have time to waste. We have assets of in excess of 400 million and to run a business of that size, we don’t have time to stand around at airports amid delays and extra security checks.”

Andreas Panayiotou is clearly delighted with his aircraft invest-ments. Not only do they save him time, they also make him a little profit. However, the 38-year-old business-man is not blind to one of business aviation’s major attractions. “It’s basically a turn-on,” he confessed.