The Polish operator formerly known as Blue Jet is rebranding as Jet Story, in order to cater for its overseas expansion. "We need a name which is completely free of any trademarking issues. When we created the brand eight years ago we did not realise we would be operating on five continents and we just need a legally clean brand to be able to expand, especially to the US and Asia," says Jet Story ceo Jakub Benke. "We wanted a simple name typical for the category that would reflect the culture of the company in general, but there was no big philosophy behind the name itself apart from the fact that it was more difficult than we expected to find a brand name that was free on all continents.

"If someone takes it seriously these days and consults trademark lawyers, creating a global aviation company like this and finding a name for it is tricky, more tricky than I expected."

Jet Story has four aircraft of its own and its other nine jets are managed. Benke says that it is very difficult to build a profitable charter business based on fully owned or leased aircraft, at least for a smaller player. "Charter is what we are great at, so we want to do it mainly by using aircraft that private owners want to utilise to generate some revenue. We have been pretty successful with that, and that is the direction that we are taking. Our recently acquired G650 is privately owned and it is not commercially available yet, because the owner wants to use it for himself for around a year, while it is still new. However, it will go commercial next year. We have big plans for that already because there are very few G650s in Europe. There is demand and all charter brokers are asking about the Gulfstream. I wish I could start selling it tomorrow."

New clients for management have been hard to come by, as Benke explains: "We have developed from four aircraft to 13, so we have been successful, but each single one of them was a battle. We always hope for a breakthrough and for a flow of aircraft but basically all European companies know that management is the easiest way to make some profit in a safe way, so there is a lot of competition for new aircraft.

"We are certainly dominating Poland. We have one aircraft from Russia now and we hope for more to come. Obviously Russia is not buying many aircraft at the moment, yet our position in that country is stronger and stronger every year."

His main challenge is the fact that the number of business jets in Poland does not properly represent the population. Poland has close to 40 million inhabitants but only around 20 private jets.

"For some reason Polish millionaires are rather thrifty and they don't spend as much money on business jets, whether on charter or on purchasing them, as their colleagues from the Czech Republic, let alone Russia," Benke says. "The economy of the Czech Republic is one third of Poland's, and they have over 40 business jets. So this is the primary challenge in our local market. We are the clear leader in Poland and most new jets come to Jet Story, but only one or two are purchased every year. We are still waiting for the breakthrough here, and I do not see a big systematic reason for Poland not buying jets.

"I hear stories about Austria where 25 or 30 years ago they had 20 jets and now they have 300 so I hope for a major shift when we reach a critical mass and flying business jets becomes trendy. We try to liaise with aircraft manufacturers in popularising travel by private jets," Benke explains.

"We start by making our target customers aware of this kind of travel because many people, who can afford it, still don't know how easily accessible it is and how much it can change their life for the better."