German charter operator FAI rent-a-jet expects revenues to pass €50 million ($71 million) for the first time this year thanks to a healthy domestic economy - and a hazardous global security situation.
The Nuremberg-based company - which specialises in supporting UN relief flights and medevac as well as high-end business charter - has just added its twentieth aircraft, a second Bombardier Global Express.
It has also invested €10 million in its first company-owned maintenance hangar and offices at its home airport. The 6,000m2 (65,000ft2) facility will replace a rented hangar and open at the end of April.
FAI turned over €42.1 million in 2010 but says rising demand in all its business segments is likely to boost this significantly. Its divisions include FAI Flight Ambulance International, which operates a Learjet-based fleet of 14 aircraft - and which FAI claims is the largest air medical provider in the world. In the VIP sector, where FAI operates another Global Express, two Bombardier Challenger 604s and a Dassault Falcon 900DX, founder and chairman Siegfried Axtmann expects "continued above-average growth".
The company says the "positive economic climate" in Germany and several other European countries is "driving globalisation forward and strengthening air traffic in general", with demand for charter flights and patient transport high.
"The geopolitical security situation is generating rising demand" for flight logistics for UN missions, it says.
The company has donated €250,000 for a day care clinic in Senegal.
Source: Flight International
