Swedish operator European Flight Service (EFS) has relocated to Landvetter International airport in Gothenburg and is building an FBO there. The company is also expanding its business at Farnborough in the UK, as CEO Stephen Diapère explains: “Our fleet has remained the same for a while now. We have the same eight aircraft: a Gulfstream, a Legacy, an XLS, an XLS+, two Sovereigns, a CJ3 and a CJ1. The charter market has been very hot, especially from the UK, where the Legacy is based [at Farnborough]. It is flying all the time, so we are very pleased.

“We are trying to build things up at Farnborough, and with that in mind we have employed two additional members of staff over there, to take the team up to five.”

He says that the Legacy has been especially well-received by customers: “It is very popular with music groups for tours, because you can take so many people on it for the price. Your only other option would be to go up to bigger aircraft like a Falcon or a Gulfstream. The Legacy has great capacity and it is a good workhorse.”

EFS' Part 145 sister company European Maintenance Service (EMS), which shares the facility at Landvetter, now looks after around 80 per cent of the Textron Aviation market in Scandinavia. “But in Scandinavia you are talking about 60 aircraft in total, whereas in the south of England there are 350, so it's a totally different market,” says Diapère.

Together the two companies have a presence in Oslo, Stockholm and Gothenburg but he believes that Farnborough is the most opportune for expansion. “This year we are hoping to take on two new aircraft under management at Farnborough; they are Bombardier models which will be a first for us. Our goal is to get back to about 20 aircraft in total. We had 15 once upon a time, before the big crash came in 2008.

“We are a boutique service that looks after the customer and we are not interested in volume because our owners wouldn't accept it.”

Three of the EFS UK team were previously employed by former Farnborough-based operator JetClub, and Diapère suggests that he is creating 'a little JetClub' of his own in London. Despite hoping for a return to 20 aircraft he admits that pre-2008 traffic levels are still a way off. “I don't think anybody is seeing the type of movements we saw back then, and I'm not sure I believe the operators that say they are. However, there's a really nice breeze blowing in the business at the moment; I can feel it. Last year was very good for charter for us, and movement is starting to happen again.”