Q&A: Elit’Avia anticipating clients’ needs in a changing Europe

With a wealth of expe­ri­ence in pre­vi­ous roles at Vis­ta­Jet and Tag Air­craft Man­age­ment, Wyn­ton Fau­re is respon­si­ble for pro­mot­ing Elit’Avia’s ser­vices in air­craft man­age­ment, char­ter, VIP trav­el ser­vices, tech ser­vices and whole air­craft sales. Cur­rent­ly, his par­tic­u­lar point of focus is devel­op­ing the UK mar­ket and assist­ing those clients seek­ing a seam­less tran­si­tion through Brex­it.

As air­line pas­sen­gers in and out of the UK face pos­si­ble new pro­ce­dures and restric­tions once Britain leaves the Euro­pean Union, cor­po­rate avi­a­tion could help smooth away the pain-points for those whose lives and busi­ness­es depend on fric­tion­less trav­el.

Although it is too ear­ly to antic­i­pate exact­ly how Brex­it will affect the cor­po­rate avi­a­tion sec­tor, with air operator’s cer­tifi­cates in Slove­nia and Mal­ta, Elit’Avia is con­fi­dent its unique geo­graph­ic foot­print and ser­vice options will ease the jour­ney for its clien­tele.

What bear­ing does the UK’s trig­ger­ing of Arti­cle 50 have on Elit’Avia’s busi­ness, and could being co-locat­ed in Slove­nia and Mal­ta be ben­e­fi­cial for cus­tomers on both sides of the new “bor­der” due to be imposed in two years’ time?

We expect that our clients will expe­ri­ence min­i­mal, if any, dis­rup­tion to oper­a­tions due to Brex­it. With a Euro­pean air operator’s cer­tifi­cate, inter­nal Euro­pean flights will remain free of cab­o­tage restric­tions. Nor will mis­sions to and from the UK be affect­ed. Elit’Avia now becomes very attrac­tive to UK air­craft own­ers with mis­sion require­ments in Europe. Addi­tion­al­ly, Mal­tese reg­is­tra­tion offers a tax-friend­ly envi­ron­ment for own­ers and Slove­nia offers oper­a­tional cost-sav­ings. The only fore­see­able impact will be for clients who may take on pas­sen­gers in the UK and trav­el to a sec­ond in-coun­try des­ti­na­tion.

Elit’Avia has a diver­si­fied fleet with medi­um and long-haul range capa­bil­i­ty. What are the impli­ca­tions of offer­ing these types of air­craft in a chang­ing Europe?

The com­po­si­tion of our fleet reflects the chang­ing nature of our clients’ mis­sion pro­files – more transcon­ti­nen­tal and over­seas mis­sions, few­er short­er in-coun­try mis­sions. Elit’Avia’s fleet com­po­si­tion is a tes­ta­ment to our exper­tise in man­ag­ing diverse air­craft types and mod­els.

Do you think there will be a shift in the way UK cus­tomers will be inclined to draw on Elit’Avia’s air­craft man­age­ment propo­si­tions as the tec­ton­ic plates of Europe shift?

Yes. We believe that UK clients will ben­e­fit from our air­craft man­age­ment ser­vices. Over­all, we expect UK oper­a­tors and G‑registered air­craft to be dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly incon­ve­nienced by Brex­it. These cir­cum­stances are cre­at­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty and this is why Elit’Avia is expand­ing its pres­ence in the UK.

Are the forces of dig­i­tal dis­rup­tion — app book­ing, com­par­a­tive price shop­ping and so on – hav­ing any influ­ence on the way you inter­act with pre-exist­ing and new cus­tomers?

We are always look­ing to improve client inter­ac­tion through inno­va­tion. But we are also very sen­si­tive to the fact that our clients expect atten­tion to detail and oper­a­tional effi­cien­cy above all. We believe that the chal­lenge is to bal­ance the old and the new. We will not allow our ser­vice lev­els to be “dis­rupt­ed” by tech­nol­o­gy, but we do sup­port tech­nol­o­gy that enhances ser­vice.

Turn­ing to the inflight prod­uct, pas­sen­gers expect to have access to high-speed con­nec­tiv­i­ty when they need to be pro­duc­tive in flight. What sort of con­nec­tiv­i­ty through­put for mul­ti­ple stream­ing is avail­able on board your fleet?

Most of our 21 air­craft are equipped with the lat­est in-flight con­nec­tiv­i­ty solu­tions.

Elit’Avia pro­vides main­te­nance as part of its offer. Can you elu­ci­date on what types of main­te­nance and stan­dards you com­ply with, and do you think require­ments will change in the new Europe?

Effec­tive­ly man­ag­ing the main­te­nance of an air­craft is key to a suc­cess­ful oper­a­tion. Elit’Avia’s Ljubl­jana base is home to an excep­tion­al­ly well-edu­cat­ed, tal­ent­ed and mul­ti­lin­gual work­force. Since we are able to employ more peo­ple and offer a high­er ratio of staff to air­craft, we can deliv­er bet­ter ser­vice than our com­peti­tors. Giv­en our fleet diver­si­ty, we sup­port ten dif­fer­ent tech­ni­cal types of air­craft and work with five dif­fer­ent civ­il avi­a­tion author­i­ties. Because we are lev­el 3 IS-BAO cer­ti­fied, our team aims to exceed stan­dards in air­wor­thi­ness and air­craft care on all plat­forms.

How have your cus­tomers changed dur­ing the last ten years and how do you antic­i­pate their needs will change over the next decade?

Cus­tomer pref­er­ences and mis­sion pro­files have changed sig­nif­i­cant­ly in the last decade. In gen­er­al, the mar­ket has become bet­ter edu­cat­ed thanks to avail­abil­i­ty of infor­ma­tion online. This can be a dou­ble-edged sword because some of that infor­ma­tion is inac­cu­rate or incom­plete, which can lead to con­fu­sion. Elit’Avia’s role is to stay ahead of the game. To serve your clients best, you need to know them – indi­vid­u­al­ly. Fur­ther­more, we aim to antic­i­pate clients’ needs to deliv­er a tru­ly effort­less expe­ri­ence.

Even in the exec­u­tive jet trav­el sec­tor, there’s a cer­tain lev­el of com­modi­ti­sa­tion with increas­ing choic­es for cus­tomers. What are Elit’Avia’s points of dif­fer­ence?

Since the com­pa­ny first opened, the Elit’Avia team has been guid­ed by an endur­ing com­mit­ment to exceed client expec­ta­tions. Offer­ing an excep­tion­al lev­el of per­son­alised ser­vice, client sat­is­fac­tion is cen­tral to our vision. Addi­tion­al­ly, we have ten years’ expe­ri­ence and more than 35,000 hours of flight time. Every­one on our team goes above and beyond to ensure client expec­ta­tions are not only met, but exceed­ed. Our air operator’s cer­tifi­cates in Slove­nia and Mal­ta have served us, and our clients, very well. We are always on the look­out for new oppor­tu­ni­ties to pro­vide the best pos­si­ble solu­tions, pro­vid­ed they are aligned with our phi­los­o­phy of putting clients first.

For more infor­ma­tion please vis­it www.elitavia.com