MHS Aviation in Germany has had a promising start to the year, taking on four more aircraft in the first four months of 2016 and becoming Argus accredited. Its total fleet now numbers 24 aircraft. “The 25th one is coming, and we have signed a LOI for a management contract on another Challenger 604, this will be number 26 on our AOC,” says CEO Steffen Fries. “It has been a good year so far. We have hit our targets for the end of April, even though we have heard from the industry how horrible March was. Fuel prices have helped, and maintenance contracts have been strong, so I think things have balanced themselves out.”

Now managing a fleet of five Challengers, the operator's biggest market is Europe and the Middle East. Fries does not do a lot of business in Russia. “Nowadays there are a lot of aircraft sitting on the ramp in Moscow,” he explains. “You have to position your aircraft, pay a high landing fee and expensive parking. That market was never really there for us, so that is why we haven't experienced the drop; we have not been hit by the Russian impact.

“Most of our business comes from the leading brokers. I help brokers to satisfy customers in AOG instances, because next time they will come back and say that MHS is a reliable partner. I want to focus on good partnerships; I don't need to have thousands of brokers.

“I also look to spread the business out beyond charter, so we now do wet lease, ACMIs on Challengers where people look for an aircraft over a six or nine-month period, and this work is more regular. I am not solely dependent on the ad hoc spot charter market, which is great.”

Good crews and reliable aircraft are all part of the puzzle, and Fries strives to keep his crews motivated. He also says that having a good CAMO and maintenance organisation is essential: “If you have an AOG somewhere three hours east of Moscow, it is a disaster until you get a team there. We are very proactive on our maintenance, since most of our aircraft do not have a home base. We position them wherever the charter is.”

Despite having a CJ2+ based in Vienna, most of the MHS fleet is floating. “This is attractive for a broker because it means the aircraft doesn't always have to return to home base,” Fries says. “ For most of our aircraft, other than the G550 and the CL300, we don't have to have owner's approval, so when I give a price out to the broker they can rely on me that I can do it. It is not good for me to come back a day later without owner's approval. Brokers know that I can commit to a flight within the same minute. Through the Rockwell Collins system I can check the crews, visas and maintenance, and commit straight away.

“One more thing that makes us different is that out of our 24 aircraft I think I have ten different kinds of management contract. Each owner has different priorities. Having a fixed hourly rate which they know they get works in some cases, others want us to charter as much as we can and we get a sales margin on it. So we are very flexible with customer demands.

“You can't just say 'take it or leave it' to a HNWI; you have to be flexible. We are at a size where we are still very boutique, but on the other hand we have all the economies of scale, so that I can do my flight operation, my crew planning, my ground ops, and spread out the cost over 24 aircraft.”