In keeping with its policy to operate exclusively Bombardier aircraft, Cirrus Aviation has taken delivery of its third Learjet 60. The leased aircraft, which is based at Saarbrucken, also joins a LR40 and a Challenger 604.

The company has sold its fleet of Citations in a bid to streamline its operation and reduce the costs of maintaining and operating its fleet of charter aircraft.

“Demand for the Citations was diminishing and more customers were asking for the Learjet 60,” explained md Harald Schwertfeger. “In addition to this, it’s much more cost effective than operating different aircraft types.”

The company aims to operate more than one aircraft of each type within its fleet in order to ensure aircraft availability to its clients. “It will enable quick repositioning and greater availability,” said Schwertfeger. “We have such a strong demand for our aircraft that we cannot satisfy all of the requests.”

Cirrus is expecting high utilisation of the aircraft, especially in the increasingly popular Russian market, and predicts that the LR 60 will make between 800 and 1,000 flight hours per year.

According to Schwertfeger, many of the company’s flight requests are to destinations within Russia and the Ukraine, and Cirrus has noticed increasing numbers of aircraft flying out of Geneva, Switzerland.

“Russians are asking for modern aircraft and we can fulfil their requests. There’s a big demand and not enough aircraft there,” he said.