Luxembourg's Jet Flight to Be First TBM700 Frax Operator

Socata's Debrun Bullish on Sales Sales of U.S.-manufactured single-engine piston aircraft may be down, but Socata will sell as many as 50 more Caribbean-series aircraft in 2001, Phillippe Debrun, the firm's president and CEO predicts. This could boost the firm's revenues by as much as $35 million, he says.

Business flyers with turbine tastes and Bonanza budgets now have a solution to this seeming dilemma. Luxembourg-based Jet Flight has ordered ten Socata TBM700 aircraft to be sold into its new fractional ownership business, thereby becoming the first company to do so. Jet Flight will offer fractions as small as one-eight of the $2.3 million single-engine turboprop, which can cruise as fast as 300 knots.

"TBM700 is ideal for this," says Phillippe Debrun, Socata's president and CEO. "It can fly into 2,500 airports in Europe, whereas jets can only use 250," he claims. TBM700 can fly a typical 300-mile business trip in one hour seven minutes, according to Business & Commercial Aviation's 2001 Purchase Planning Handbook. That's about 15 to 20 minutes slower than an entry-level jet, but TBM700 only burns about one-third the fuel, a considerable advantage in environmentally aware Europe.