Heliavia has taken delivery of a Falcon 2000EX EASy, which replaces its Falcon 50 and joins a Falcon 900B and Eurocopter AS350BA at the company’s Lisbon Airport base. The company cites technical quality, features and performance as key factors in the decision to purchase the aircraft and, having operated Dassault aircraft for several years, claims that its technical knowledge and experience will prove advantageous.

According to general manager Vitória Henriques, however, there are certain difficulties to overcome within the Portuguese charter market, stating that ‘illegal’ competition is currently heavily detrimental to the industry.

“The market situation in Portugal has been affected by the competition of some companies that are illegally operating, as well as with the indefinition of some companies that are operating on a fractional property basis. 

“This is prejudicial to our activity in Portugal as well as in all of Europe. We hope that very soon, with EBAA support, the illegal competition of some non-qualified operators in Europewill be stopped.”

Despite these issues, Henriques anticipates that the Falcon will accrue about 600 hours of flight per year and it may be joined by another aeroplane, within the Citation Excel segment, in the future.

“We considered other similar aircraft but chose the Falcon 2000EX EASy without hesitation,” she said. “All the aircraft that we considered are also of good quality, but we think that the Falcon has many evident advantages, including the ability to make both short and long range flights with an enormous amount

of flexibility.

“A client may request a flight to Madrid and the next day they could request a flight to Luanda or New York, so we needed a reliable aircraft of excellent quality and flexibility, which is able to operate under differing conditions either in Europe or on intercontinental flights.”

Henriques believes that the best features of the Falcon are cabin comfort and the advanced technology of the engines and avionics. With regular flights to Africa and the US, the company states that the aircraft’s range of 3,800nm and ability to take off directly to 41,000 ft will prove invaluable to both Heliavia and

its clients.

According to the company, the only disadvantage is that it can be difficult to find trained pilots for the aircraft. “We consider that the training is in a critical situation as we need to have more trained pilots and there is no capacity in the only existing simulator.” Heliavia’s pilots were trained at FlightSafety.

The interior configuration of the aircraft consists of 10 leather seats, which can be changed into beds, and a meeting table for six passengers. It can be reconfigured as an air ambulance if required and is fully equipped for long range flights – the galley features an oven, microwaves and a refrigerator and there is a telephone and fax machine in the cabin.