Lions Air of Zurich has begun operating a Dornier 328 turboprop for ad hoc charter flights. The company bought the ex-Swisswings aircraft last year and completed a huge maintenance job on it, in order to prepare it for its new workload.

Director of sales and marketing Urs Maienfisch told EBAN: “It has 31 economy seats but there is actually plenty of legroom in which to stretch out and relax.”

The early business signs have been pretty good, says Maienfisch, with requests from brokers and

travel agencies whose clients wish to fly to islands in the Mediterranean for example.

“We will also be flying French football teams in the near future,” he said. “The season has just started

and we are in contact with one of the biggest aircraft charterers in France. We will either fly the teams from one French city to another of internationally, depending on which European competition they are competing in.”

Maienfisch says the 328’s cabin is very quiet for a turboprop and talks of a very good market out of Zurich in the 30-seat segment.

Traditionally, Lions Air is an operator of PC-12 aircraft and it is in this domain that the company has also spread its wings a little further. The ninth such single-engine aircraft came online recently and a tenth is due in February or March of next year.

The latter will be outfitted in vip configuration and operated for a private company which is a shareholder of several other businesses in Europe. The primary function will be to carry management personnel to these other companies around Europe although there may also be the opportunity to charter the aircraft out to other interested parties.

The most recent PC-12 to come under Lions Air’s remit is based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, making it the only one in its fleet to be located outside Zurich.

One of the decision-makers at the owner company got in touch with Pilatus who then passed their details on to Lions Air. “We’re the fourth biggest PC-12 operator in the world and the biggest in Europe,” said Maienfisch. “The deal was done quickly because our prices are really quite fair.”

Lions Air has crew members in Bangladesh and they are responsible for teaching the owner company’s crew how to operate the aircraft themselves. The company mainly carries out flights within Bangladesh and to Nepal.

Asked whether this latest arrangement opens up more opportunities to operate PC-12s outside Europe, Maienfisch said: “The companies have to be based somewhere and it really doesn’t matter whether it is Zurich, London or another city.

“The only difficulty we have is the time difference but since Lions Air is reachable 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, it doesn’t affect the operation much. We can easily operate outside Zurich.”