aviation

“I

guess it’s the old adage of anytime,

any place, anywhere” said Mike

Sessions, head of commercial for

Jota Aviation, succinctly explaining

the work the airline undertakes. “We supply

ACMI – aircraft, crew, maintenance and

insurance – but it can be a one-off charter,

or it could be a year’s contract somewhere,

looking after another airline’s interests.”

The charter work is extremely varied,

including some high-pro le clients from the

 elds of sport and entertainment. “I would say

we’ve carried most of the English Premier

League football teams,” said Sessions. “We’ve

had contracts with  ve clubs in the top half

of the Premier League – those run from

August through to May for the football season.

Some of the teams take the standard 95-seat

aeroplane, some the 50-seat VIP aircraft

which has big all-leather business class

seats. The seat pitch is very good on the

aeroplane and the teams seem to like that.”

He continued: “On the ACMI side, we can

be airborne within an hour so long as we

have a crew on standby here at [London]

Southend Airport. But the way the market’s

going, a lot more people are looking at

longer term arrangements. Some of our

current ACMI arrangements are for three

months or more. I think a lot of that is due to

crew shortages [at airlines].”

Andy Green, Jota Aviation’s CEO and

accountable manager, picked up the

theme: “Nothing sits still for very long in our

marketplace and it’s a very reactive industry.

More people are travelling so there’s more of

a requirement, which means we’ll get busier,

because we’re ‘bottom-feeding’ compared

with the seat-selling airlines.

“There are other advantages to ACMI for

a large, scheduled airline,” Sessions added:

“It gives them the chance to test a route

without committing to bringing in an aircraft

and crew speci cally to do that. They can

test a route for a short period of time and

if it works, they can decide then if they are

going to do it on their own. We can cover for

maintenance downtime, crew shortages and

one-off tech issues as well. There are many

different scenarios and you’ve got to be a

company with the sort of employees that

have adaptability, who can pick up something

quickly and run with it. Green con rmed:

“That’s what we do. The whole Jota operation

is based on quick reaction.”

He explained that the  rst concept for the

venture came in 2009: “We started with three

piston twins, Piper Navajos and Chieftains,

doing cargo. So that is the core of the

company. It was contracted cargo,  ying  ve

nights a week for DHL and Allied Irish Bank.

We then developed and got what I would

call a proper cargo aircraft, which is the King

Air – it has a large cargo door and can take

outsize loads [within its category].”

It was when operating two of these aircraft

that the company won its  rst accolades. “We

got into the ad hoc market in a big way, which

is where we honed our skills for the quick

reaction, market-led charters. We were pretty

successful, winning two BACA [Baltic Air

Charter Association] awards for Best Cargo

one-off tech issues as well. There are many

Need an aircraft at short notice for a charter fl ight or to fi ll in gaps in

your carrier’s schedule? Jota Aviation is busy building its reputation

as a ‘go-to’ airline in the industry, as Bernie Baldwin discovers.

JOTA AVIATION

GROWING A ‘GO-TO’ AIRLINE

24 Aviation News incorporating Jets November 2018