Amid the pandemic that caused serious downturn in the aviation industry, PhilJets, one of the leading boutique private aviation company in the Philippines, has taken delivery of one more brand-new business jet earlier this month.
PhilJets’ private jets fleet has increased by 100 percent in the last three years. Cessna Citation CJ4 is its third business jet this year that joins PhilJets' fleet. Cessna Citation CJ4, 8 seaters, is the latest addition for PhilJets, the country's second largest fleet with 18 aircrafts under management.
"Since the outbreak of covid-19, the corporations operating in Southeast Asia need higher safety level in their travel. This partly explains why Business Aviation has started to recover. We notice the requirements of flying private has increased in the last months," said Thierry Tea, chairman of PhilJets.
In this context, the CJ4 private jet, manufactured by American aviation and defence conglomerate Textron Aviation, has successfully completed its ferry flight. A complicated process in time of pandemic due to multiple stops that originated from Wichita, USA, and ended with the trip's final leg being an Osaka to Manila flight.
PhilJets will be operating its second brand new Citation CJ4 complementing its singular fleet of 8 private jets, including brands and models such as Cessna Citation Latitude, Citation XLS, Beechcraft King Airs, Bombardier Challenger or Gulfstream.
In addition, the boutique private aviation company is managing and operating 10 helicopters, from Bell to Airbus rotary aircrafts, such as Bell 505 or Airbus H145. PhilJets is the largest operator of Airbus H130 helicopter model in Southeast Asia.
Recently, PhilJets added Bell helicopters starting with a Bell 407 before ordering three units of the market's new sought after, Bell 505 helicopter, “which is the best suited for the Philippines”, according to Geoffroy Cahen, Commercial Director of PhilJets. “We indeed have much more demand for Bell 505 helicopters now” he added.
The year 2020 has been a catastrophic year for the aviation industry worldwide due to the pandemic, and PhilJets' business activities have also been severely impacted by the seven months lockdown established by the Philippine Government, in order to prevent the spread of covid-19.
Despite this roller coaster year, Robert Reguero, CEO of PhilJets is confident the hard work will pay off.
“Our team has shown resilience, has been doubling down on efforts and has closely been working with partners to maintain the fleet operational. As the country re-opens, activity in private aviation is expected to pick up while commercial aviation remains limited and will take longer to resume operation.
We welcome our new member of the PhilJets family with great expectations going forward,” he said.
The new Citation CJ4 is valued by customers around the world for delivering productivity and value with its combination of high performance, and low operating costs. There are currently more than 320 units of CJ4 worldwide.
Geoffroy Cahen, Commercial Director said, “In this difficult period, we thank the owners of the jet for their trust in PhilJets as well as the Cessna teams for their support. We are proud of our teams for the hard work making this delivery successful, despite all the technical hurdles.”
“PhilJets has assisted the owners in the acquisition process, from identifying the best suitable aircraft for their need, the agreements, the financing, the pre-delivery, the acceptance and delivery process until the registration and entry into service.’’
Tea noted that PhilJets grew its fleet and customers base since seven years, when we started from scratch. Today, there are about 1,200 business jets and 4,000 helicopters in Asia. While China is the leading market, the fleet in the Philippines keeps on growing with about 200 helicopters and 50 jets.