A leading industrial group in South India has become the launch customer for Empire Aviation, a private aircraft management service, which began operations in the country this month.

“For the South Indian company, it is a first jet — a large Bombardier aircraft. We inspected the aircraft, got some corrections done and flew it down. We provided the crew, maintenance, catering and fuel over flight —the whole nine yards,” said Vivek Gour, Managing Director, Empire Aviation. He, however, declined to divulge the name of the company. In June this year, Air Works made a Rs 120-crore strategic investment in Dubai-based private aviation company, Empire Aviation Group.

Larger share

The biggest advantage for the client was that it did not have to set up a huge aviation department to fly just one aircraft.

Gour claims that the current practice among big industrial houses of having large departments — as if they are mini airlines — is unique to India. For Empire Aviation, this also means getting a larger share of the money that the company would have otherwise given to some other service provider.

“The advantage to us is that anyone who owns a corporate jet spends between Rs 10-15 crore annually on it, including fuel. When we were only an MRO, we would earn about Rs 1 crore of that Rs 15 crore. Now, as an aircraft management services agency, we are earning the full Rs 15 crore with a margin. So, I have a bigger share of my customer’s wallet,” Gour said.

Empire is in the process of acquiring two more clients — one in Delhi and the other in Mumbai by December.

>ashwini.phadnis@thehindu.co.in

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