New Charter Product

[Humberside]

Private charter specialist, Eastern Airways, has introduced a new enhanced charter product aimed at corporate customers, international companies, blue chip organisations, sports teams, the music industry and private clients.

The UK’s second largest regional airline, which was recently named Best Passenger Charter Airline at the Baltic Air Charter Association (BACA) excellence awards, is further developing its high quality offering to deliver the best possible charter service in the 29-50 seat market.

Celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, Eastern Airways launched its range of bespoke charter products to charter brokers at TAG Farnborough Airport. The new service meets individual client requirements, ranging from its premier level Platinum service, as well as Gold and Silver service.

Cabin crew have been specifically trained in the hospitality sector to deliver the Platinum and Gold onboard services tailored to suit each clients needs and also in a variety of languages, including English, French, Italian, Spanish, German and Polish.

A new cabin crew uniform specifically introduced for charter services has also been unveiled to differentiate the private charter service from Eastern Airways’ scheduled services.

Kay Ryan, Eastern Airways’ commercial director, said: “We have significantly grown our charter business over the last two years and the launch of our new charter product further demonstrates our attention to detail and customised levels of service to meet the requirements of our clients. The bespoke charter services we offer will appeal to a whole host of existing and potential customers.

“The event in Farnborough was the ideal opportunity for us to showcase our latest charter offering to the charter industry’s leading brokers.”

www.easternairways.com/news/10/eastern-airways-launches-all-new-charter-service

[richardtaylor]

Interesting comments from the COO:

"We have been a charter provider for a while, but we wanted to provide a special product within this market that would differentiate us from the other players," said Eastern Airways chief operating officer Chris Holliday. The Humberside Airport-based company has rolled out a four-tier service ranging from entry-level Bronze to the top-of-the-range VIP Platinum service. "These customised levels of service will help to meet a wide variety of requirements and appeal to a whole host of existing and potential customers."

Eastern Airways' charter offering is targeted at the 29-50 seat market, using the company's fleet of Embraer ERJ-135 and -145 regional jets. Larger twinjets will be added to the fleet as demand dictates.

"There is a niche market for transportation of groups up to 50 passengers - it is a comfortable market to be in," he added. "We are willing, however, to add a larger type such as the Bombardier CRJ900 or Embraer 170 if there is enough demand for a product like this. Ultimately we are led by market requirements,"

Although Eastern has a fleet of larger regional aircraft such as the Saab 2000 and BAE Systems Jetstream 41s, "turboprops don't appeal to bespoke charter customers", Holliday conceded.

Eastern Airways began operations in 1997, developing a network of scheduled services around the North Sea offshore oil and gas industry with flights from the east coast of the UK to Aberdeen. The company has an ongoing partnership with Bristow to provide fixed-wing flights for oil and gas company employees between Aberdeen and Scatsta airport in the Shetland Islands on behalf of the oil company-led Integrated Aviation Consortium. Bristow then transports the crews offshore via helicopter to destinations in the east and west Shetland basins.

Eastern Airways has a fleet of 29 aircraft flying from 23 airports in the UK, Holland, Denmark, Norway and France. "A lot of our charter work is built on the back of this scheduled service," Holliday said, adding that although the bulk of its business is UK-based, Eastern Airways is looking to expand its bespoke charter service into other markets across Europe.

The operator is also evaluating the thriving oil and gas markets of north and west Africa as possible destinations for its offshore crew shuttle service, he said.

[Humberside]

Certainly the bits in bold are very notable. Hopefully the new charter product is a success for Eastern