Aerowest has seen plenty of activity from its Citation Encore+, which replaced a Piper Cheyenne in the company's fleet earlier this year. The German operator is also flying an XLS+ and another Encore+ as well as four Sovereigns, predominantly on VIP charter missions with some air ambulance work. “We utilise all of our aircraft to a similar degree; the Sovereigns, Encores and XLS+ all fly the same amount of flights per year,” says sales manager Axel Klegien. “We are still happy with the Sovereigns, and we have no reason to change at the moment. We have nothing definite planned for fleet renewal.

“Everybody can always use a little bit more range. Our core business is operating the Sovereigns across Europe, into Africa and even across the Atlantic sometimes. But for 95 per cent of our missions I would say that the range is sufficient. We have flight attendants on board and our customers like that too. The summer months are quite busy and we operate the Sovereigns on a floating fleet basis, which means that they rarely come to our home base in Hannover; they stay where they end up such as southern Europe or London.”

In his opinion the German market is buoyant. “We have got a very positive feeling about the business aviation industry as a whole; it is quite strong at the moment and the climate is good.”

Aerowest flies nine aircraft in total, all of which are assets it owns. “This give us great flexibility and, especially with the Sovereigns, we can take two or three week tours with a customer with no problems. It is not a matter of owner's approval. It is true that it needs to pay off in the end but so far so good,” concludes Klegien.