Hydra Trading partners with UK company to tap growing aviation sector in GCC

Hydra Aviation is a joint venture between the Abu Dhabi based Hydra Trading and a UK company, Air Touring. The announcement was made at IDEX. Hydra Aviation debuted the Socata TBM 850 - a new class of airplane at the defense show.

Commenting on the launch of the new company Dr Mohamad Zahran, Director General of Hydra Trading, said:

"The launch of Hydra Aviation is a significant step forward in line with our strategic expansion plan. We believe that there is a huge potential to develop the GCC aviation market. The Middle East aviation industry is worth billions of dollars and yet the market is largely untapped. Lack of major competition and our position as the early market entrants will definitely work to our advantage."

Michael Pearce, CEO , Air Touring said, "Hydra Aviation will benefit from our expertise in aviation distribution and Hyrda Trading's established market network."

"The Middle East particularly the GCC is emerging as the preferred market for the European aviation companies, both manufacturers and distributors in wake of the liquidity crunch. As exclusive distributors of Socata TBM in UK and Germany, we were tapping in the huge demand for this new class of airplane that combines ultra-luxury with super high functionality. But lately there has been a drastic dip in the demand. There will be a definite shift in the industry towards countries with high liquidity. Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Saudi Arabia would be our immediate potential markets," he added.

Socata TBM 850:

Socata TBM 850 is a new class of airplane -the Very Fast Turboprop The latest version features a Garmin G1000 avionics suite with digital autopilot, luxury interior and efficient pressurisation and control system. It delivers jet-like speeds and is cost effective. The aircraft is manufactured in France by Daher and EADS, the makers of the airbus.

Hydra Trading Targets $15-20m in sales for 2009:

"The Socata TBM 850 is ideally suited for high mobility needs (within a limited geographically area) of high net-worth clients and top-management executives of corporates. We have received many queries for this product from across the region. The fact that GCC boasts of a large number of high net-worth clients augurs well with our marketing plans. High speed and cost effective luxury is the key attraction of this airplane. We are targeting $15-20m in sales for the current year."