Luxaviation Group's commercial programme director Chay White says that the company has bounced back well this year. “From a charter perspective, we’ve had an interesting time. We are fortunate because our fleet varies; we have got long range aircraft and aircraft suitable for regional and domestic travel too. We had loads of international flights at the start of the pandemic as people travelled to get to their preferred destinations to settle in during their time quarantining, and then when those borders closed, we saw regional flights picking up within Europe, and then when Europe’s borders closed, international flights picked up again over the December period. We’ve bounced back well this summer, and it has been even better than pre-pandemic times in terms of charter. Aircraft management has been great through to the third quarter of last year, and then it tapered off a bit. Now, however, activity and sales are starting to pick up again.”
Luxaviation has undergone some infrastructural changes, by selling ExecuJet Switzerland to Jet Aviation. “When you lose a client, you have to regroup and make sure you are communicating changes with existing clients,” White remarks. “We had to continue to fill the gaps and deliver the service we’ve promised and our clients expect. The process has gone well. We closed our ExecuJet UK AOC last year and moved all our G-registered aircraft across to our Luxaviation UK AOC. That transition was successful, and now we are focusing on the UK market. This was difficult for some time, especially since the UK left the European Union. Pre-Brexit, no one knew how everything was going to pan out, but certainly now with bringing the two businesses into the UK under one AOC, we are very much UK-focused, on the G-reg as well as the private operations such as Isle of Man and Bermuda, and Aruba.”

The firm also has the single European AOC, meaning that it doesn't have to have businesses in a certain European country – provided the aircraft is registered in an EU country and the ownership of the aircraft is within that or another EU country, the group can welcome that aircraft to its fleet and manage it for commercial operations, under a single EASA AOC.

White adds: “In January this year, I took on an additional role. I was commercial director for Luxaviation Europe, and now alongside this, I’ve taken on the role as group aviation commercial programme director. I was part of the ExecuJet fold, and in late 2019 we started trading more as Luxaviation. I’m working closely with the teams throughout Europe– we found some great success pre-pandemic and now it is picking up again. The best way forward for us regarding our existing entities and as we potentially acquire more companies, is to be inclusive and learn best practices from region to region, and share that research internally. Off the back of a great summer, everything is going really well so far, and we are excited to move forward after the past year.”