Private ACMI provider Jota Aviation has supplemented its commercial activities with its first BAe 146-200 jetliner with a considerable amount of north sea oil support work during its first six months of operation, including operations into Aberdeen International Airport, host of this year’s Routes Europe forum.
The company part of the independent Jota Group, which also comprises Jota Sport, Jota Design and Jota Historic was set up four years ago to cater for the travel and cargo demands of the motorsports industry, but has grown to be a leading air charter specialist across the UK and Europe, introducing the larger BAe 146-200 jet in October last year.
Since it joined the fleet of the London Southend Airport-based venture activity has included an ACMI support contract performing up to eight daily flights out of London City Airport for one of the UK's leading scheduled carriers to various UK and European destinations. This week the aircraft makes its first visit to TAG Farnborough Airport for a private charter to Marrakech, while additional ad hoc charters have been performed for Sports Teams, Film Crews and Corporate Incentive trips.
In fact the initial success with the aircraft has led the company to already start looking at expanding the fleet with further additions, reports commercial manager, Mike Sessions.
The next step for Jota is to offer the market an alternative 50-plus seat full executive cabin layout in 2/2 seating to accommodate the requirements of niche operators and charter brokers with the layout ideal for incentive events, car launches, sports and music tours.
It has purchased new comfortable business class seats, trimmed in sumptuous leather and will accept them from the vendor within the next two weeks. They expect to be able to multi role the layout from its current newly refurbished 95-seat cabin configuration to 54/56 seats within 12 hours.
“There are few players in Europe who can offer 50-executive seat plus availability with such a generous cabin size and serve all manner of runway restricted airports as the 146 can do, so we anticipate this will be an interesting niche for us,” said Sessions.
He sees continued strong opportunities for the aircraft in the ACMI market as many scheduled airlines flying predominately business routes require cover for unscheduled maintenance and crew shortages during the busy summer months. The airline is also able to offer a club configuration by converting the centre seat of each treble to a table to allow more comfortable seating and a moveable cabin divider to offer a separate business class if required.
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