EBACE Watch – Cessna

Austrian Charter Operator Takes 24 Cessnas
Austrian Charter Operator JETALLIANCE will take 24 Cessna aircraft including four the Cessna Mustangs, it was announced at last week’s European Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (EBACE). The JETALLIANCE order brings year-to-date Citation orders from JETALLIANCE to 50.
Deliveries start in 2010. The 2008 orders consist of four Citation Mustangs, seven Citation CJ2+s, 11 Citation CJ3s, three Citation CJ4s, 10 Citation XLS+s, seven Citation Sovereigns, four Citation Xs, and four Citation Columbus aircraft.
JETALLIANCE Group is one of the world’s leading business jet enterprises, offering a unique turnkey solution for business jet customers. With Jetalliance, the customer can purchase, finance, operate and maintain an aircraft. The Group’s subsidiary, JETALLIANCE Flugbetriebs GmbH, operates a fleet of 35 aircraft with an average age of three years – one of the youngest fleets in Europe. It operates under JAR OPS 1 in Europe, but is also FAA part 129 certificated allowing it to fly commercially in the United States and Canada.
“We find Cessna Citations to be perfect for most of our operations given their performance, low cost of operation and global support network,” said Lukas Lichtner-Hoyer, managing director of the JETALLIANCE Flugbetriebs GmbH. “As a result of our turnkey operation, and working together with Cessna and BTV, our financiers, we have seen a considerable expansion in our sales and operations in Eastern Europe and Russia in the last few years. This order is a confirmation of this success, as well as our view of the future potential of those markets.”

Citation Parts Doubles at Paris Center
Cessna Aircraft Company is nearly doubling its Citation parts inventories at its Paris Citation Service Center and at all authorized service facilities throughout Europe as part of a major customer support initiative.
“This inventory expansion initiative will be a major boost in our constant effort to enhance support of the more than 930 Citations in the region,” said Senior Vice President, Customer Service Mark Paolucci.
The first phase of the initiative has been successfully implemented within the North American Cessna Citation Service Center network and is part of the company’s global strategy to improve inventory availability supporting Citation operators. Citation owners and operators will benefit from improved inventory holdings, part number forecasting and stock-on-hand visibility across the network of European service facilities.
The new global inventory distribution optimizes efficiencies within the Citation parts and service center networks to ensure that all customer support locations operate seamlessly to meet customer needs. In the event a Citation customer experiences an AOG event, this transformation places the right parts in the right location at the right time, minimizing operator downtime.

Private Flight to Take CJ2+
Cessna will deliver the Citation CJ2+ model to Private Flight GmbH later this month of the milestone aircraft, which is the 101st unit of the upgraded CJ2+. The aircraft will be based in Bayreuth, Germany, and used by Harry Krause for private travel.
Cessna delivered the first Citation CJ2 in November 2000, and 242 were delivered before its successor began deliveries in April 2006. The CJ2+ received U.S. Federal Aviation Administration certification on Oct. 3, 2005, and European Aviation Safety Agency certification on July 10, 2006.

DC Aviation Upgrades Citation Fleet
Germany's largest operator of business jets will be upgrading its fleet of Citation XLS to seven aircraft in June with another two Citation XLS. This will make DC Aviation the largest operator of Citation XLS in Europe. In total, the company, with headquarters in Stuttgart, operates then 30 private jets of various sizes. DC Aviation is a preferred partner of Lufthansa Private Jets.
Formed by the merger of Cirrus Aviation and the former DaimlerChrysler Aviation, in 2008 the company is concentrating on aircraft management, charter operation and maintenance of business jets. It employs over 380 staff and operates 1 Airbus 319 CJ, 2 Gulfstream 550, 2 Global Express, 1 Global 5000, 1 Falcon 900 DX, 2 Challenger 604, 5 Legacy 600, 1 Challenger 300, 1 Gulfstream 150, 1 Citation X, 7 Citation XLS, 2 Learjet 60, 4 Learjet 40.