Germany has the highest number of business jets in Europe, with 237 registered to the country. German operator Stuttgarter Flugdienst (SFD) has noticed growing demand for business jets recently. It operates six Cessna Citations – a CJ1, a Bravo, an SII, and a Citation III, V and VII – from its base in Stuttgart.

The company was formed in 1956 and separated from its sister company, Contact Air, in 1997. It began operating a Citation II and Beech King Air and, having developed and grown over the past five years, now operates six Citations.

Managing director Andreas Mundsinger said: “We started operating Citations in 1997 as we thought it was a good product and the prices per hour are pretty good. It’s a really good aircraft for the clients too, who find the costs really acceptable. Also, we have three licences in the company, which is good for the pilots – we can be very flexible in planning the crews.”

SFD flies all over Europe – to Italy, Spain, Holland and the UK in particular. The company has learned to adapt to the requirements of an increasingly demanding and impatient business world, where meetings are set up or cancelled very quickly, leaving little time to give notice for a flight.

“The flights are much more ad hoc than they were a few years ago, so we receive most of our bookings within one to seven days of the flight,” said Mundsinger. “Three years ago the clients had more fixed meetings and fixed dates and there were no last minute changes. The last minute bookings have increased, so we must be much more flexible than we were a few years ago.

“The market has increased in the last ten years. 2000 was an incredible year for general aviation and many companies earned a lot of money but, after that year, a lot of companies became bankrupt.

“After the year 2000 there were a lot of very small operators with one CJ1, for example, with two pilots and an office, so there was a lot of competition,” said Mundsinger, “but in 2001 they had no flights, so they went to the market with very low fares. A lot of these smaller companies are no longer operating, which is better for the older, established general aviation companies.

“In 2001 and 2002 there was a slight decrease in business, but now we have the same standard we had in 1999, which is more realistic. The year 2000 was an unrealistic year for general aviation,” he added. “The market has been going smoothly since last year. It’s not easy but we can survive.”

Mundsinger is hoping that the economic situation in Europe, and Germany especially, will improve over the next two years and that the German market will open up to match the rest of Europe. “Germans aren’t really used to spending their money on general aviation and chartering aircraft,” he noted.

“At the moment approximately 30 to 40 per cent of our bookings are from outside of Germany, especially from the UK. The German passengers seem to be from the larger companies.”

Fears are mounting in Germany about the closure of Berlin-Tempelhof Airport which, coupled with tight JAA regulations, could prove disastrous for business aviation charter operators.

“There have been discussions for many years about the closure of Berlin-Tempelhof, which will be a really big problem for every general aviation airline because the passengers will say that they have no advantage in flying chartered aircraft,” said Mundsinger.

“Also, JAA regulations about crew duty times and rest days make it much more expensive as you need to have more crew. If you want to add more crew, you need to fly more hours, so it’s not easy.”

With the expansion of the EU comes new opportunities for operators like SFD to capitalise on an untapped market but, as Mundsinger points out, it will be a long process to fully integrate the Eastern European countries into the business aviation sector.

“We hope that we could expect business expanding to the new countries in the EU but at the moment there are no enquiries to make flights to those countries,” he said. “Back in 1997 and 1998 we did not make many flights to Eastern Europe but at the moment we are flying very often to Bulgaria, Poland and the Czech Republic. I think those regions need about one or two years probably before operators are really charting aircraft there.”