UK operator 2Excel Aviation was delighted with the number of visitors its Boeing 737 received at the recent ACE21 expo at London Biggin Hill airport. “Footfall was outstanding, really tremendous,” says senior charter flights analyst Tim Procter. “My main area of focus is on the 737 fleet for passenger charter. We’ve got two identical aircraft. We are looking to add another aircraft next year, hopefully a Boeing 737-700 series, and that will give us considerably more range. It’s our aim to concentrate on VIP 60-62 seat missions, all business class. We have no aspirations to move into other markets. Premium VIP is what we do.”

The footballers and rugby players 2Excel flies are all pretty ‘big boys’, and they all require a fairly generous interior – they get that automatically. “Alongside that, we have got huge capacity in the hold, because in its previous existence the aircraft was designed to carry a lot more people,” Procter continues. “We have massive volume in there. When the guys go to Champions League or Europa League fixtures, they take a lot of kit with them such as physio benches, oxygen bottles, even footballs. It’s no problem at all and we have six hours of range, so there’s nowhere in the European sphere that we can’t get to – we can even go over to Baku with a full load. It’s a very flexible machine.”

On the 737-700 it is eyeing up, the company would aim to maintain the same number of seats, so the market will be common to all three of its types, with the difference being that one would have exceptional range, and would open up the transatlantic market along with India and southern Africa. “We are in negotiations for that at the moment and will look to introduce it in 2022. There are minor cosmetic differences from the 737-300, not that you’d notice. It has a longer fuselage and larger tanks, which are what give it its phenomenal range.”

2Excel also carries out lifesaving SAR missions for HM Coastguard, under a contract its special missions team holds with the UK’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency. It performs heavy maintenance in-house, and also has the only aerobatic team (The Blades) on an AOC.

“There is one newsworthy point that I wish to make,” Procter adds. “Post-Brexit, British carriers haven’t had the same ability to travel around Europe that we did have. The UK CAA and the Department for Transport have been very supportive. There are some charter carriers under ‘flags of convenience’ such as the Maltese 9H register that are coming and going, conveniently being exclusively Maltese at one moment and then part of the 27 EU block in another moment. They are booked by the UK charter brokers above the home grown product. If a football team was flying to Moscow from the UK for the Champions League for example, they shouldn’t really get traffic rights because they are Maltese, but you have a whole host of UK operators sitting about on the tarmac, despite good prices and availability. Brokers put the business with these other carriers under flags of convenience. It’s annoying, because the brokers pick and choose. One minute it’s a piranha pool, desperately trying to get availability, and then they seize upon these cheap and useful flags and go for it. And we are right here waiting.”