aviation

Airline, which is quite some feat bearing in
mind the competition,” the CEO said proudly.
“It was about our customer service to the
brokers. When there is a problem, people
need an answer ‘now’. They don’t need an
answer in half an hour or an hour. The way
that we try and work – generally it will be a
phone call rather than an email – and if we
know we have availability, we keep them on
the phone. We say, ‘Yes, we’re available’, then
we’ll quickly look at the crewing situation,
how quickly we can dispatch an aeroplane,
put a price to it if there’s not already an
agreed matrix in place with the customer,
and they have an immediate solution. We
may not be the cheapest, but we’re hopefully
the quickest and easiest solution.

JOINING THE JET SET
“The whole idea of the company was to build
up the infrastructure and look for market
opportunities. We don’t necessarily have any
hard and fast ideas of where we want to be
in  ve or ten years’ time, apart from to grow
and improve,” Green declared.
A cargo-con gured King Air is not
operational right now, but Jota is considering
bringing it back into service, probably via a
third-party Aircraft Operator Certi cate (AOC).
The type was also used for early passenger

services, but in 2013 the move to jets began,

with the company choosing the BAe 146/Avro

RJ family to be the mainstay of its  eet.

Green laid out the qualities that led the

carrier to focus on the type. “First, they’re

reasonably priced aircraft. Because of the

work we do it’s very difficult to predict our

revenues in any given period. As a start-up

at the time, we didn’t need the huge capital

cost of a brand new or nearly new aeroplane.

Also, the availability of aircraft and spares –

and pilots – was good.”

“The other thing, of course, is that

it’s a go-anywhere aeroplane,” Sessions

commented. Green concurred: “We looked

at the London City Airport [LCY] market

and saw who – before we came on the

scene – was supporting the operators out of

there. We saw opportunities for offering last-

minute, call-up availability. Also, the 146/RJ

can get into lots of air elds with restrictions.

Somebody once said to me, ‘Oh, you should

have got an A320’. I replied: ‘Well, can an

A320 land at LCY?’ We’ll get much better

rates in the winter for our 146/RJs than an

A320 operator will receive [elsewhere].”

Sessions described the operating

environment as “a bloodbath”... “In the

winter A320 and 737 operators have aircraft

to spare and they’re all selling them at less

than cost. It’s a market that just doesn’t work

for us. The 100-seat regional segment is

year-round and there is some competition,

but it’s not as bad as the A320/737 one.” The

airline’s 146/RJs can offer a 50-seat luxury

layout and a regular 95-seat option.

FREIGHTERS

The latest additions to the  eet are four BAe

146-300QT freighters (which will wear ‘Jota

Cargo’ titles), underlining the carrier’s belief

in the type’s  exibility. Green explained:

“You’ve got some synergies there with spares,

engineers, pilots and so on. But it’s also the

ability to go into different markets that gives

you resilience in your business.” The rest of

the jet  eet comprises an Avro RJ85, RJ100

and a BAe 146-200.

Green stated: “On the cargo side, it [the

QT] can  y for one of the integrators, in a

postal role or work in the ad hoc outsize

market. There’s a lot of  exibility there

http://www.aviation-news.co.uk 25

“The whole Jota

operation is based

on quick reaction.”

Jota Aviation’s jet  eet comprises

examples of the BAe 146/RJ family.

AirTeamImages.com/Simon Willson