Titan Aviation, which manages its worldwide operations from Dubai, is edging closer to securing an AOC in San Marino while continuing to develop its business in the UAE and India. As reported in EBAN last month, the company recently added a Global 6000 to its managed fleet. A Phenom 100 is also expected to arrive in Q4 of this year, at which point the San Marino AOC should be finalised.

"Both the Middle East and Indian arms of Titan Aviation are important to us," says MD Sakeer Sheikh. "With the Middle East Global 5000 we have a lot of high net worth clients to look after and we are also in the process of starting medevac operations.

"We are looking beyond the Middle East and at medevac aircraft that can also be converted into a VIP charter aircraft. We will use a Hawker 900XP and Challenger 605, and this will form our next expansion plan, out of Dubai and Abu Dhabi."

Titan Aviation is partnering with a large hospital group in UAE, the first step towards a fully-fledged medevac operation, as Sheikh explains: "The second step is to make ourselves available to other parties that require such services. Royal Jet used to operate a lot of medevac flights but is no longer active in this business. We want to get in there, with the right kind of aircraft.

"A Challenger can fly seven hours, which would be ideal to cover some parts of Europe and some parts of Africa. So we have a long range, non-stop aircraft and we have a medium range aircraft that can cater to the Asian market and the eastern European market."

Sheikh also reveals that he is planning to add four more managed aircraft to the fleet before the end of the year. "Aircraft management is a serious focus in our business and we have a lot of thrust in that area," he says. "We have hired James Coak, who has work experience in the GCC in the charter department. He comes with a lot of experience having worked at Rotana, Falcon and Gulf Wings. He will drive forward the expansion plans we have in the charter and management division."