CTC Aviation, the airline training and pilot resource company, is expanding its elite operations service for private jet owners, with the launch of a dedicated operation under the name CTC Private Jet.

Leading this initiative, md Captain Steve Billett says: “CTC has been running private jets under management since 2007, and is now formally launching the service under its own name and with a new menu of services.

“We currently operate a Gulfstream G-550 which we have just taken delivery of, a Falcon 2000EX and two Hawker 900XPs. There are a lot of AOC operators out there, but we made the decision to offer a bespoke and personal service. I can't say we would never have an AOC, but our clients want exclusivity and private access.”

Billett believes that the parent company's expertise in commercial pilot training is highly valued by its private aircraft owning clients. “We have four pilots that we ourselves trained, and they are used to our view of operating to airline standards,” he adds.

CTC is looking for only modest expansion: “The optimum size is difficult to define, but the plan would mean adding six more clients in the coming six months.”

The company says that the number of medium and large sized business aircraft delivered to the UK during 2007-2011 was 70 per cent higher than the previous five-year period. It believes this growth is driven by an increasing number of ultra-high net worth individuals living and working in the UK, and estimates that Russian and US citizens alone, for example, spent more than £1.3 billion on prime property in London last year. This means that there are now around 295 medium to large sized business jets in the country and collectively they are worth around £4 billion. CTC says its research also revealed that last year there were some 392 daily business flights in the UK, five per cent higher than in 2009.

“The UK – and London in particular – continues to attract some of the wealthiest and most successful ultra-high net worth individuals in the world, and many of these people and their organisations have purchased, or are considering investing in their own aircraft,” says Billett. “We have been successfully running a fleet of four jets for a private client since 2007 and feel the experience we have from this, plus that of annually working with over 50 global airlines, means that we are well equipped to not only expand into the growing private jet market, but also to offer unique standards of safety and service that are without equal in the private jet world.”

Regardless of where clients or their aircraft are based, CTC's specialist operations team will monitor and control all aspects of a client's journey. The maintenance schedules go above and beyond legal airworthi-ness requirements, and operating partners are regularly audited.

Rob Clarke, chief executive of the CTC Group, adds: “We work for a number of major global airlines including British Airways, easyJet, flydubai, Jetstar, Dragonair, Monarch Airlines and Qatar Airways and felt that the vast experience we have gained here could be applied to the private jet market. Private jets should be operating to the same high safety standards as those of a modern airline, where risk is minimised and crew training of the highest quality ensures that these goals are achieved.”

CTC Aviation had sales of £27.9 million in 2012, and trains around 2,000 aircrew for more than 50 global airlines each year.