Avcon Jet, launched in the summer of last year, is enjoying "above average" utilisation of its aircraft. Head-quartered in Vienna, it has already expanded its fleet to six aircraft with the delivery of a Citation XLS and a Citation Bravo. They become part of a fleet, including two CJ1s and two CJ2+s, one based in Bucharest, that has an average age of less than one year.

Christian Lang, Avcon Jet cfo, says: "At the moment most of our aircraft are based in Vienna which is a perfect home base to achieve our aim to succeed in the Eastern European market. The just-arrived XLS has the optimum range for operations throughout Europe but we are putting the emphasis on Eastern Europe, where it is the perfect aircraft to serve our customer base."

Lang points out that new charter companies have to take into account delivery times when building a fleet. "But for us it was also very important to use reliable aircraft with good conditions of maintenance. In fact we intend to get a wide range of different aircraft depending on cabin size and range to meet our customers" expectations."

Vienna, Lang points out, is located centrally between the two major European markets to the east and to the west. "We are able to use our aircraft above the average utilisation in Europe. There is an increasing acceptance by companies that it is necessary to utilise business jets as they seek to streamline the travel time and costs of their executives, and therefore we are seeing an increase in short and medium haul flights throughout Europe, which in turn means less downtime for our jets. He says Avcon Jet has the funds and the determination to continue investing in its fleet and services.