DAL Aviation, based in Salzburg, Austria, has been granted an AOC by Austro Control, the Austrian civil aviation authority, in accordance with EASA regulations. As of today, two Cessna Citation CJ2+ aircraft are operating under the new certificate, with no interruption of service. The rest of the fleet will follow over the coming months.

Over eighteen months, DAL Aviation's teams submitted every procedure, every manual and every function of the organisation to the scrutiny of Austro Control – an authority chosen for the rigour and exacting standards of its certifications: safety management, crew training, operational control, aircraft maintenance and regulatory compliance. The certificate granted today attests that the company meets the highest standard applicable to commercial passenger transport in Europe.

“For ten years, we learned this business under someone else's certificate. From today, our flights carry our own name. It is the greatest responsibility an operator can take on, and we built it piece by piece, over eighteen months, with a single obsession: that our clients would notice no difference, because the standard was already there,” says Nicolas Trefeil, CEO and founder, DAL Aviation Switzerland.

Managed from Geneva, DAL Aviation Switzerland flew 1,500 hours and carried more than 2,000 passengers last year, with a team of over twenty people and a fleet of five aircraft: one Cessna Citation CJ1, two Citation CJ2+, one Citation CJ4 Gen2 and one Beechcraft King Air 260, operated until now under the AOC of ProAir Aviation.

The new organisation is led by an experienced management team, with Stefan Wuske as Accountable Manager of DAL Aviation, Riccardo Arrigoni heading flight operations and crew training and Khaoula Derbel heading continuing airworthiness.

With its own certificate, DAL Aviation now controls its entire operational chain and is accelerating: a sixth aircraft will join the fleet in the very near future, alongside the development of its charter and aircraft management services.