After a short while operating from Farnborough, Club Airways
of Switzerland has changed its UK destination to London-City Airport.
Hans Schwab, founder and CEO of this European executive jet scheduled
service, said that, when using Farnborough, his members found
that the advantage gained by avoiding airline check-ins was squandered
in road journey time to and from the UK capital.
The twice-daily, five-days-a-week business jet service links Geneva's business
aviation Terminal C3 with London-City's Jet Center Terminal. Geneva
also links with Paris Le-Bourget on the same schedule, and operates
a Geneva-Cannes-Olbia (Sardinia) route. It will start Geneva-Basel
and Geneva-Milan (Linate) services on October 20, followed by a
Zurich-Munich route a month later.
"Very few people gave us credibility when we started operations,
but we have been flying eight months now and it's been a real rollercoaster
ride. We turned in a profit last month and have gained courage from
that," confided Schwab.
Thomas Hirschmann, former president & CEO of Jet Aviation, has joined
Club Airways' advisory board. Hirschmann managed Jet from 1990 until
earlier this year. "We are already working with Mr Hirschmann
to optimize our expansion strategy for the next 12 months,"
Schwab told Show News.
Club started up with Bombardier's Flexjet Europe as the aircraft
operator, but this proved expensive. Now, Jet Aviation of Switzerland
operates a Citation II, and Elbe Air of Paderborn, Germany a pair
of Falcon 20s. Schwab hopes to add a third operator, and reckons
the operation of between one and three aircraft each would be about
right in the near term as they open up more city pairings.
Club Airways membership costs 1,500 euros per year per member
or 15,000 euros for a corporation signing for more than 10 executives.
Tickets per trip are around 20% more than regular business class.
Membership stood at 450 members, (80% of them Swiss) by late September,
but Schwab hopes to more than double this to 1,000-1,200 by year's
end.
Club's network expansion plan currently earmarks another 10 key
European cities, including a service to Moscow operated by a Falcon
900. As routes get busier Schwab expects to use larger aircraft.
Current favorite is the Falcon 50.
"One of our planes is flying six hours per day, six days
per week, which is 1,600-1,700 hours annually. I don't think you'll
find anyone flying that amount on a business jet anywhere in the
world," said Schwab.
