FAI rent-a-jet has invested e10 million in a new hangar with an associated operations facility and a net area of more than 6,000 square metres at Nuremberg airport. To coincide with the commissioning of the hangar at the end of April, the airline is also expanding its fleet in May to include a further Global Express.

As a result, FAI rent-a-jet will have a fleet of 20 aircraft and now anticipates annual operating revenue in excess of €50 million for the first time.

"The construction of Hangar 6 is a 'perfect landing' for us and a sign of our strong commitment to Nuremberg as the centre of our activities," FAI founder and chairman Siegfried Axtmann, who as a construction engineer was also responsible for the drafting and planning of the project, said at the opening ceremony. FAI has operated from Nuremberg airport since 1989 using a smaller, rented hangar. "Our new hangar provides us with ideal conditions to meet the rising demand from our customers, notably in the areas of executive charter and aircraft management," Axtmann adds.

"We are enhancing our fleet to include a second Global Express long-haul jet for high-end vip charter. This new aircraft and the increasing demand in this area are enabling us to create new employment for ten further staff at Nuremberg." In all, the airline will then have a workforce of 164 permanent employees, including 30 taken on in the past six months alone.

"I would like to take this opportunity to thank Nuremberg airport managing directors, Karl-Heinz Krüger and Harry Marx, for their outstanding cooperation in the speedy realisation of this project," says Axtmann. In future, all 20 FAI jets will be serviced in Hangar 6, comprising 14 Learjets, two Global Express jets, one Bombardier CRJ 200 LR, one Falcon 900 and two Challenger 604s. Six of these aircraft are in use for vip and medevac purposes for various UN peace missions on the African continent.

FAI runs stations in Dakar, Abidjan, Entebbe, Nairobi and El Fasher. FAI Flight Ambulance International currently has the world's biggest civil fleet of ambulance jets that are specially equipped for the transportation of emergency patients and are used for this purpose only. "Operating ambulance flights is an ad-hoc business, often at difficult destinations", Axtmann says. "To fly profitably it is therefore important to plan the stationing of aircraft with exact precision. Since February, we have had an ambulance Learjet 55 stationed in Dakar serving the region comprising Northwest Africa and the Canary Islands.

As from May, we will be stationing a Learjet 60 at Abu Dhabi Al-Bateen City Airport." Every year, the company organises more than 600 ambulance flights for government organisations and insurance companies. These are supplemented by a number of UN deployments, which the company does not disclose for contractual reasons.

As a further strategic growth area, FAI is planning to use the opening of Hangar 6 to develop its aircraft management activities for owners of business jets. FAI provides aircraft main-tenance and management services on the customer's behalf as well as active on-request marketing services in the charter market.

€250,000 donated for clinic in Senegal

Having completed its own construction project FAI has also provided €250,000 to fund the building of a day care clinic in Senegal.

"Our ambulance flights often take us to locations in dire need and to people lacking basic medical care. We wholeheartedly feel it is our duty to help, which is why we have supported the construction of the clinic in Kolda. As such, we know that our aid actually reaches the place where the people are who need it most. I would like to express our thanks to our partners managing the local realisation of the project: UNESCO and Hope87," says Axtmann.