Gregg Air has added a fully refurbished Hawker 125-800B to its fleet in order to meet the growing demand it has witnessed for midsize jets in the UK. The company refurbished and resprayed the aircraft at its facility at Oxford Airport.

“It’s a 1989 aircraft but the interior is absolutely immaculate,” said operations manager Mark Jempson, “and you can pick them up for a very reasonable cost.

“We’ve got a Citation Excel, which hasn’t got the range to go to destinations like Athens, so we needed an aircraft with a little bit more range in the midsize bracket.

“Last year we had a tremendous year and most of the business was coming from the Excel so, as we needed another midsize cabin aircraft, the Hawker was the obvious choice,” he added.

The company also operates two Citation Ultras – one of which it leases – a CJ1 and a Bravo. All of the aircraft in the fleet have been refurbished within the last 18 months.

“We thought about getting another Excel but the cost of buying it and the repayments terms on it would have been horrendous,” said Jempson.

“Also, the market value would drop if we bought a brand new aircraft. With the Hawker we managed to get it at such a good price we could refurbish it, keep it for a few years and hopefully sell it for about the same price.”

Gregg Air flies business clients, pop stars and various lords and ladies from London to many southern European destinations, including Athens, Nice, Lisbon and Madrid. It aims to charter the Hawker out for between 50 and 55 hours per month.

“We want to keep a full range of aircraft so we have the entry level business jet users coming to us who may, in time, move up to the midsize and larger cabin aircraft,” said Jempson.

The company will be taking delivery of the second UK-registered Premier 1 on a management contract in August, which it hopes will be available for charter flights by September.

As a result of the surprising growth in the UK charter market this year, Gregg Air is hoping to acquire Falcon and Legacy aircraft under management by the middle of next year.

“We’re putting them on the AOC at the moment so that when they do arrive we can start operating them straight away,” concluded Jempson.