London-headquartered Ocean Sky Aviation has bought Manchester-based Northern Executive Aviation (NEA) in a multi-million pound

deal that heralds "aggressive" Europe-wide expansion.

NEA, established 37 years ago, currently employs 60 people and in 2005 was voted No.1 handling agent in the U.K., and No.2 in Europe in the European Business Air News annual FBO survey.

Kurosh Tehranchian, Ocean Sky ceo, says: "We sampled first hand the experience and craftsmanship of the engineers by using the main-tenance centre for Ocean Sky's own fleet of Challenger 604s. The NEA purchase makes Ocean Sky a fully integrated aviation company with a facility at Manchester airport that includes two hangars for maintenance and parking."

He adds: "Our new company is a Bombardier authorised maintenance centre that also includes an exclusive facility at Manchester for private jets with our own vip terminal. This will be fully refurbished to coincide with the renaming of NEA to Ocean Sky Maintenance and Engineering. Ocean Sky will use this base as a springboard for further aggressive expansion into other airports around Europe."

Tehranchian says that buying NEA was not a simple process. "We had to fight off stiff competition from international companies, including much larger American aviation companies." The deal was handled and negotiated on behalf of the seller of NEA by Credit Suisse.

Mike Foley, NEA md, who takes a seat on Ocean Sky's senior management board, says: "With the resources now available to us I can take NEA to the next level."

Ocean Sky, which has quadrupled its facilities at Prestwick in Scotland (EBAN August), also has offices in Moscow, Munich and Zurich and offers private jet charter, management, sales, acquisitions and handling.