Entrepreneur Paul Crowther, whose yacht client connections and regular "commute" between homes in France and England helped inspire the launch of a European charter operation, plans to take the company public to enable further expansion.

The initial rapid growth of Brighton, Sussex-based Mitre Aviation, has been accelerated by referrals from Plane Chartering, its sister brokerage arm, and demand from the client base of Yacht Brokers International, one of the oldest yacht brokers in the south of France that the group acquired a year ago.

The Mitre fleet of two Citation IIs and a King Air 90 is expected to be expanded by the addition of two more Citation IIs and a Falcon 50 by September. But Crowther says: "We think the European charter market of the future is going to be based on companies with larger fleets rather than those who have two or three aircraft on their AOCs.

"We are aiming at the customers who find NetJets pricey but want comfortable aircraft and efficient service. Therefore we are going to offer complementary combinations of air miles, fractional ownership and competitive charter prices. I am funding the initial stages but it makes sense to finance the expansion to a larger fleet by flotation on London's AIM market for emerging companies."

He adds: "The major challenge is to find and acquire aircraft that give the comfort level that business and yachting clients want. This means finding relatively new preowned jets and refurbishing them to the high standards of comfort that clients who have travelled to the south of France from regions including Russia and the Middle East for leisure and business have come to expect."

One regular flow of potential clients travel between homes and bases in south east England and southern France. But yacht owners from the Cannes/St Tropez/Monte Carlo and St. Jean/Cap Ferrat regions initially turned to Mitre for a comfortable but competitively priced taxi service between their homes, yachts and local destinations. "Then," says Crowther, "came a growing demand for trips further afield in Europe. We launched a fractional hours scheme but sold 800 hours in the first four weeks and have ceased marketing until capacity is increased. We are launching a charter miles scheme where miles can be bought and used to charter a variety of aircraft types from our own and other fleets in south east England and the south of France. This would give clients a fixed price."

After a test run, the scheme should be rolled out fully this month (April). "The air miles type scheme gives business clients a fixed price scheme based on distance travelled, not time. This fixes the client's costs and risk on setbacks like delays and allows the 'flyMiles' as we call them, to be used on any of our partner aircraft as well as our own fleet.

We are also working with several other operators in the UK and Europe to tie together a fleet of over 22 aircraft, all available to our clients in Europe. We are going to offer the business client a real cost alternative to first class schedule carrier prices."

Crowther adds: "Mitre Aviation has come a long way in a relatively short time. We started with a King Air about a year ago. I have a house in England but live in the south of France and go backwards and forwards.

"The company has clients with yachts and it was obvious to me that there was a substantial charter demand between the two countries and in the south of France localities. However, the clients wanted jets. So we brought the first jet into service just before Christmas and the second two weeks ago."

Crowther says that City of London businessmen have been invited to join an expanded board that will supervise a flotation and enable further rapid expansion to a double figure fleet of low cost jets with operational bases in Cannes, Nice, London Biggin Hill, Newcastle, Leeds and Manchester with offices in Brighton and in Antibes, Provence.