What proportion of your charter business is either to or from Europe including western Russia? Here in the Middle East our charter client base is diverse. Although the majority of clients are based within the region, CIS countries feature heavily. Clientele based in Moscow and Europe presently account for around 10-15 per cent of our total charter bookings.

Do you have any permanent aircraft bases or strategic alliances in Europe? Being an international operator with bases around the world has its benefits. Our European charter teams are based in Zurich, Palma, Moscow and Cambridge, so cross-selling is fairly common practice. All of the ExecuJet Middle East fleet is based in the region.

Do you employ Europeans on your staff? Indeed – I am British! We also employ charter professionals from Jordan, Lebanon and India. So the team is truly international. This is one of the benefits of the Dubai working environment in that we can recruit globally from a pool of skilled individuals.

Is it easy for Middle East businesses to deal with European customers/ suppliers, or are there any remaining cultural issues? To be honest, great aircraft and service combined with competitive pricing, is now the international language of the charter business. Also the fact that both markets are fully established and highly competitive helps.

What are your thoughts about how the Middle East and Europe cooperate or interact in business aviation? The playing field is not totally level in terms of charter flying, in that Middle Eastern operators are restricted in their European operations, but European operators face almost no restrictions in the Middle East. However, relations are generally very good.

Having worked in Europe, Latin America and the Middle East I would say that the Middle East represents the biggest operational challenge to the charter operator. Permissions and permits are of course both a way of life and a constant challenge. Permissions are required for almost every country we operate to commercially.

The other challenge we some-times face is regional unrest, requiring constant security monitoring of different airports and countries. In many ways we are blessed by having one of the best security teams in the business, led by Sven Krieger, who happens to be German. The developing situation in Syria created a challenge recently for a charter trip from Beirut to Baghdad. At the time of quoting and confirmation the trip was straight-forward, with a direct ATC routing over Syria, but as time progressed and the conflict worsened we made the decision to avoid Syrian airspace. This increased the flying time by one hour each way, which could have been charged. However, we put the client first and absorbed the extra flying costs internally. Thus neither the aircraft owner nor passengers lost out.

Does Europe provide a useful market, or difficult competition, for your charter services? It is actually a mixture of both, as we see both European clients and competing operators in the region. However, the biggest challenge is illegal charter, sometimes termed the 'grey market', involving private aircraft that are not approved for charter flying by the regulators. Surprisingly, this is actually on the rise, despite the fact that in the event of an accident the aircraft's insurance is unlikely to be valid.