Charter, management and aircraft sales company Haute Aviation has achieved its own AOC, a first for the Switzerland-based outfit.

"We are extremely grateful and proud. What a huge step for us after being the first Swiss company with a swiss commercial PC-12," says CEO, co-founder and lead captain Alexander Tamagni. "This was already a game changer for safety standards. The AOC now gives us the independence to manage and operate aircraft while taking care of the owners. We can now have this super personal contact with the clients and owners and it is now all more transparent for them."

Tamagni's dream was always to have the first Swiss commercial PC-12, to offer the highest of safety standards to passengers with complete transparency, no club system. Aided by head of marketing and communications Catherine Tamagni, this was achieved in October 2020. The next step was to get the AOC, in order to be independent and to operate just how we want to.

"We started last summer with the preparation for the AOC. It was very interesting, demanding and of course with all up and downs as in every project management," he continues. "But we had a fantastic team who shared the passion to reach this goal. It brought our whole team even closer together. As a former film producer I would compare it with Rocky or Top Gun, where you fight, but you fight together, for a dream."

Catherine continues: "The challenge was that we already had a busy business, our aircraft were up in the air, we were taking care of our clients and still had to find time to prepare all documents and structures for the AOC. We are not a big company yet, so this meant we all had to do three times as much work.

"My husband and I did sales, accounting, marketing etc. We were running the whole office, just the two of us. This makes us enormously proud and I think this brings a special touch to Haute Aviation. Our team is growing and that is great. But as a couple it was unbelievable to see what we could achieve."

The company's PC-12 NGX is now on the AOC and a Phenom 300E will be added shortly. "The new Phenom 300E was the best product to complete the range of our fleet of a Global Express and PC-12 NGX. With this fleet we cover Switzerland, Europe and the world," Tamagni continues.

The Global Express is already flying charter clients around under another operator at the moment, but will come onto the new AOC in a few months time.

"Volumes are already so high and we are just grateful," adds Tamagni. "The goal is now to expand while maintaining the highest quality of service and adding more aircraft to our management portfolio. Two more aircraft should arrive in 2023."