Switzerland-based ExecuJet Aviation Group is setting up FBO (fixed based operations) and MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) facilities as it looks to expand its business aviation solutions in emerging markets in Asia.

ExecuJet Group Managing Director Gerrit Basson heads a team visiting the Singapore Airshow this week. ExecuJet’s presence coincides with the opening of its first Asian base at the expanding business aviation airport Seletar, where ExecuJet has just acquired an aircraft hangar for wide-bodied business jets and is now expanding its capacity to provide comprehensive operational and maintenance support to several regional Gulfstream and Bombardier aircraft. The deal gives it an instant foothold in the region.

ExecuJet’s Asian aspirations are endorsed by its new international investor Irish entrepreneur Dermot Desmond, who acquired a majority shareholding in the ExecuJet Aviation Group last May and became the company’s chairman.

The investment he has committed is enabling ExecuJet to increase the rate of expansion of its portfolio offerings into other key established and emerging markets. Globally, ExecuJet currently employs an expanding workforce of more than 750 industry skilled staff. 

ExecuJet is a multi-faceted company, specialising in aircraft sales; aircraft charter - where it supports a 100-strong business jet fleet worldwide - aircraft management, for which it operates under six regional AOC’s; fixed based operations and MRO.

In terms of the diversity of aviation solutions it offers and its geographical reach – in Europe, Southern Africa, the Middle East and Australasia - it is one of the industry’s leading players.

“We see great opportunities in India and China especially,” said Basson, who has visited both countries in the past few months. He returns to India in March for a series of industry and media briefings with the Aerion Supersonic Business Jet.

The SBJ, for which ExecuJet is the international sales distributor for all territories except the USA, has already won an order from Pakistan. The Akbar Group, for its newly established private jet operator Princely Jets, committed to a Letter of Intent at the Dubai Air Show in November. 

Meanwhile, ExecuJet has grown its Australasian operations in the past 12 months, with the opening of maintenance facilities in both Melbourne, Australia to complement the long standing Sydney heavy maintenance base and Auckland, New Zealand.

ExecuJet’s Australasian MRO facility is the only regional authorized warranty repair facility for Bombardier and Gulfstream business jets and provide maintenance support for Boeing Business Jet aircraft in the region.- TradeArabia News Service