AVIAA, the international group purchasing organisation for business aviation, is adding over 150 new aircraft to its membership thanks to an agreement with Europe's smart purchasing business Convolus to merge operations.

The move will see AVIAA widen its footprint in Europe with the establishment of an office in Munich, Germany, complementing its existing bases in the UK and US. Irena Deville, co-founder and CEO of Convolus, becomes managing director, Europe and Middle East for AVIAA, and she will work alongside California-based CEO Gillian Hayes and her team.

“We are delighted to have formalised this agreement with Convolus. It marks a significant strategic step for AVIAA that will enable us to deliver larger scale global purchasing for our collective members and suppliers,” says Hayes.

After the acquisition formally concludes, the AVIAA community will support a member fleet of nearly 500 aircraft and a network of suppliers with global operations across every spend category, including a robust international FBO network.

Existing Convolus members will be integrated into the AVIAA community. In addition to the increased buying power the fleet merger will afford them, they will also be able to accrue further cost savings in the AVIAA supply chain that covers expanded service categories including insurance, maintenance, fuel, business operations and crew training.

AVIAA's predominately US-based members will be able to draw benefits and savings from the enlarged group's 100-strong European FBO network of large multi-destination handlers and stand-alone individual FBOs.

“Business aviation in Europe remains significantly fragmented,” comments Deville. “The opportunity to scale up and expand with AVIAA means we can optimise our technology solutions, combining our procurement data sets globally to better inform pricing, predict spend and streamline our transactions. It all comes down to better serving our members and suppliers as we add new categories to support our mainstay pillars.”

Deville brings a wealth of experience to AVIAA as co-founder of London-based Convolus and before that as head of strategic development at Gama Aviation where she was responsible for implementing the group's strategic development and acquisition strategy.

She joins a team at AVIAA with experience not only in aviation, but insurance and risk management, technology, marketing and group purchasing. AVIAA uses aggregation, transparency, industry expertise and proprietary algorithms to streamline the procurement process for both operators and vendors. Its membership model is designed to help operators of all sizes achieve improved business intelligence and economies of scale, while its approved suppliers receive committed volume without the overhead, reduced friction costs around transactions and insights into customer behaviour and purchasing patterns.