Membership airline Surf Air has received glowing feedback for its first Phenom 300, which has been operating flights from London to Ibiza and Cannes over the summer season. CEO Simon Talling-Smith plans to add further aircraft in the third and fourth quarters of this year.

“Our next opening point will be Zurich later this month,” he tells EBAN. “After that we intend to take another aircraft, although we haven't disclosed what it will be yet, in the autumn quarter. That will most likely operate to Milan.

“We have flown a few empty legs, but our business is actually a fairly high utilisation business. An obvious empty leg might be a late night return from Ibiza to London on a Friday, yet we still find that our members sometimes book on that flight. We haven't done any off-schedule operations yet, although we have got a fair amount of interest in them.”

The Phenom is flying roughly 100 hours a month at the moment, but Talling-Smith believes it is capable of flying at least 180.

“We began operations this summer with a soft launch focussing on leisure markets, when traditional business is so quiet. As we go into September we are going to turn our attention towards business flying, and will be focussing on places like Milan, Zurich and Luxembourg.”