TAG Aviation Spain has added a Citation Sovereign to its charter fleet. The midsize jet has a range of 2,847 nm with good short field access. Capable of travelling 2,847 nautical miles and cruising at Mach 0.68, the aircraft has a quiet and spacious interior and can accommodate up to eight passengers.

“I am delighted to welcome the Sovereign to our expanding charter fleet, and following the successful completion of our Spanish AOC I think we can expect more aircraft to follow,” says flight ops director Carlos Carasa Martin.

MD Carlos Gomez says that the climate for business aviation in Spain is quite challenging, but it is a climate he is nonetheless looking to make the most of: “During the good years from 2007 to 2009 Spain experienced a significant arrival of planes and plenty of operators in the market,” he comments. “It was the time the real estate bubble reached the highest point, with all sorts of new aircraft coming here. For a while there were lots of G200s, G150s, Challenger 300s and so on. Since the bubble exploded, and Spain took longer to recover than the rest of Europe, I would say that 50 per cent of the aircraft left, one way or another.

“Since then we have seen operators from Portugal, France and Germany basing planes here in Madrid because they saw opportunities. The Sovereign fits in very well to operate in Europe. It can get you to the U.S. east coast with one stop, and it certainly will give us good access to the Middle East and northern Africa, as well as all over Europe. In this particular case the owner is very keen to have charter which will be great for us.”

The Sovereign was recently serviced by Cessna in Paris and will be based in Valencia, though Gomez expects that it will be a regular visitor to Madrid. “The reality is that there are not many aircraft of that size available – I would even say that in Madrid there are none. You have the choice of bigger and smaller jets.”

TAG has four AOCs in Europe with sales teams in each location, and works with brokers and online plat-forms. “We do have close links with Swiss clients of course, and Spanish clients often prefer to deal with us rather than anybody else, but this is just a logical geographical situation,” concludes Gomez.