They are best known for flying thousands of oil workers to and from Norway every year – but an Aberdeen-based airline has developed a glamorous sideline.
While energy industry flights have become the bread and butter for bmi Regional, private charters are now a nice little earner for the firm.
In the past year it has flown almost all of the English Premier League’s top clubs, and has ferried rock bands The Killers and Depeche Mode across Europe.
It flew more than 130 charters between May and August this year – double the annual total for 2012.
Bosses believe their 50-seat Embraer jets are bringing economical solutions to the market.
Graeme Ross, bmi regional’s director of business development, said: “There were small business jets and 180-set jets available in the charter market, but not much around the 50-seat mark.
“Our aircraft fitted the bill and are the ideal size for a football club and its support staff, for example, or a company that needs to move 30 or 40 staff for an event or contract.
“When you compare the cost of achieving this via scheduled flights with overnight stops and hotels plus the time involved, the charter route is very cost-effective.”
This year, bmi regional has flown as far afield as the Arctic Circle in the north and Tel Aviv in the south, to the Canary Islands in the west and Moscow in the east. Its longest-distance charter to date was for a company flying staff from Norway to Istanbul for a ship launch.
“Our charter client base is diverse. Everyone from football and ice hockey clubs to pop groups, companies, film directors and private individuals, and we have built good relationships with charter brokers and individual clients. We also get phone calls out of the blue; there’s no single source for the charter work.
“This hasn’t happened by accident though. We looked at the market and at our fleet and saw an opportunity to provide a good product and get good utilisation from our aircraft.
“That move has been borne out by the growth we have achieved within this sector and we have increased aircraft availability for ad-hoc charter work.
“We now aim to have an average of two aircraft available for charter, but they do tend to book quickly as we see continuing demand in this sector.”
bmi regional operates an 18-strong fleet of Embraer jets and employs 400 people across its UK and European operations.