Royal Jet to celebrate 10 years of private aviation excellence next year

"The increasing optimism about the UAE and Dubai economy should be set against the context of a more challenging environment for the global executive-jet sector," said Shane O'Hare, President & CEO of Royal Jet.

"The demand for large and medium sized jets in the Middle East continues to grow. And so, obviously, that's a pleasing statistic for us here at Royal Jet as we have the largest fleet of BBJs in the world and are well placed, therefore, to grab that opportunity with both hands," he added.

For the last 10 years Royal Jet has set the benchmark in innovation for the private jet industry establishing a mark of excellence across its range of services. This approach is aligned with vision of the Abu Dhabi Government's 2030 strategic plan of which excellence and innovation are some of the key pillars.

"For Royal Jet, a number of factors contributed to its continued growth - its luxury air charter services, Fixed Base Operation (FBO) and VIP terminal at Abu Dhabi International Airport, its charter brokerage, Medical Evacuation Service, and aircraft management and acquisition consultancy services," said O'Hare.

"Last year, Royal Jet operated 3,135 flights to 370 cities in 136 countries. This year, we expect to comfortably outperform our operational and financial statistics forecast for the full period of 2012," he added.

The operator has also reported its busiest-ever year in 2012 for medical evacuation (Medevac) missions - up by 10% over another record year in 2011. As the oldest company to provide medevac services, Royal Jet has flown over 1,650 missions to date.

O'Hare explained, "Our service goes well beyond providing air ambulances, medical teams and equipment. In the past few years Royal Jet's medevac division has handled missions in the most challenging of situations across community, political and government sectors from around the world and nearer home in the GCC."

Royal Jet, earlier this year, announced a 15% increase in first-quarter revenue over the same period last year - the best Q1 performance in the company's history. This was followed by the best summer performance to date with a 19% increase in flying hours over the same period last year.

Growing the fleet and refurbishing the remainder of the current fleet is another project for 2013. Royal Jet is currently investing $9m in the interior refurbishment of one of its Boeing Business Jet. Upgrades include a new state-of-the-art inflight entertainment system, live TV, SATCOM, Wi-Fi and global mobile systems (GSM), while furnishings such as luxury seats and sleeper beds will also be enhanced.

"We are assessing our long term fleet plan which would include replacement of the existing BBJ fleet by 2016," said O'Hare. "We have also signed a commercial agreement with Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies (ADAT) to lease 4,450 square metres of hangar space at the state-of-the-art facility at Abu Dhabi International Airport. This provides us the capability for simultaneous maintenance of two BBJs and one Gulfstream and allows the in-house maintenance team to expand their existing capabilities to include all A-checks as well as fulfil other complex maintenance tasks," he added.

The new maintenance home at the ADAT hangar for centralized operations has increased Royal Jet's cost efficiencies and excellent working environment for their professional maintenance team.

"At Royal Jet, we don't take our leading position for granted. We worked long and hard to get where we are today, but we're not resting on our laurels. Our customers can be quite demanding at times - rightly so, since our business proposition is all about providing a highly bespoke service that provides exactly what they want, when they want it and in the manner that they want it," he said.

"There are no short cuts. We're at the cutting edge of service delivery - be that on the ground when our clients arrive at our FBO facilities, when they are actually in the air with us, and again when they are delivered safely to their destinations. And we're very proud of our record to date and look forward to new cutting-edge products and services in our 10th anniversary year; but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be trying even harder to enhance the customer experience to previously undreamt of heights," he concluded.