Despite a slow market in Europe, Austrian Mustang operator GlobeAir continues to experience strong demand for its VLJs in the region, with movements up 17 per cent for the first quarter of this year, and April up 26 per cent year-on-year. The company also grew its net sales by 10.1 per cent in 2016 Q1 and is targeting turnover of €23 million before the year is out.

“More competitors are coming in, so the segment is growing,” states CEO Bernhard Fragner. “Luckily we are seeing price stability, which is an indication that we have reached the bottom level of pricing. People are identifying that this is the price level that we have to stick with.

“At GlobeAir we strongly believe in investing in customer satisfaction. We look to constantly improve the product. We do this in two ways: vertical integration and differentiation. We have introduced a second mobile repair unit to cover any AOG situation. The first one came in 2010 and it turned out to be very useful. Safety is of course an important subject for us so we have introduced a safety team.”

Fragner adds: “We can also carry out engine inspections in-house, which reduces downtime and the engines are performing well. The aircraft are enrolled on a maintenance system provided by the OEM, and the fleet is now signed up to Traxxall's maintenance tracking system and we are seeing the benefits of high availability.”

GlobeAir has also obtained EASA certification as an approved training organisation for the Citation Mustang, which means that it can train staff according to its standard operating procedures. “It was a long-term project for us and I am very pleased that we have achieved it,” says Fragner. “It is also important that we differentiate ourselves from the competitors. It is not simply a matter of price, so we always try to offer more to the customer. We are now in the position to offer a 24-hour booking guarantee, so whoever books, we guarantee a flight within 24 hours, and I think we are unique in this respect.

“We have also announced a partnership with another VLJ 'survivor' called JetSuite in the US, which operates a fleet of Phenom 100s. We saw lots of similarities in our business models. It has been offering services to our customers over there, and vice versa. It is great to have this transatlantic partnership.”

The operator has been looking at refurbishing interiors for some time and the options available seemed expensive, so eventually Fragner and his colleagues decided to have a go themselves. “We thought it would be a complex thing with many STCs and so on. We have managed to get all the certificates through and we now have in-house design for our Mustang interiors with products coming from Italy. This will set us apart in the market, and three aircraft are already fitted with the different designs. Downtime for installation is two days.

“We will continue to expand the fleet; we are in the process of acquiring another Mustang. We have 14 at the moment. We are also looking at a second maintenance base.”