Apexair debuts business charter jet

  Chen Huaiyu, general manager of Apexair  

Apexair’s 24-seat Bombardier Challenger 850 business team private charter jet made its debut at the Asian Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition 2016 in Shanghai on Tuesday.

With its main operation bases in Beijing and Shanghai, the company runs a wide range of businesses including business flights, aircraft custody services, general aviation chartered flights, business jet leases and sales, air sightseeing and a flight club.

Chen Huaiyu, executive director of Apexair, said the Bombardier Challenger 850 is the first private chartered jet for business teams in China. The plane caters to the chartered jet market for business trips, customized travel, sports teams and entertainment industry events.

His company is committed to providing convenient and well-targeted private services, he added.

The company has reconfigured the plane as a 24-seater jet, leaving spacious room onboard for socializing, meetings, dining, entertainment and parties and making air travel comfortable and relaxing.

The company also provides other services related to business chartered jets, including luggage handling, security checks, customs clearances and reception. Passenger can enjoy these services for about the price of a first-class seat on a general flight.

Apexair is the only strategic and operation partner in China of Vista Jet, a world leading business chartered jet operator. Apexair leverages Vista Jet’s global network and uses the operator’s high standards to offer high-end business chartered flight services in China.

The company is also highlighted by its customized aircraft management services, including consultation, purchasing, management and maintenance, and depreciation and disposition.

With its rich experience and professional team, Apexair can ensure seamless custody services, the company said.

Chen said Apexair’s sound service system originates from its strong infrastructure. It has a 13-hectare maintenance base at Xingdong Airport in Nantong, with a hangar that can house six medium-sized and large business jets at the same time, as well as 8,000 square meters of workshops and offices.

The Apexair base is the largest of its kind for business jet maintenance and transformation in China.

More than 30 veteran jet repairmen engineers and more than 120 technical workers, who have over 10 years’ work experience on average, work for the company, which enables it to have the capacity of examining and transforming all Bombardier models.

Apexair signed a cooperation agreement with Ctrip, an online travel service portal, at the exhibition on Wednesday to jointly launch chartered jet services for high-end tourists from Shanghai to any other city in Asia.

Chen said he believes chartered business jets will be popular with flight enthusiasts and tourists, and taking a chartered business jet will become a new fashion for travelers in China.

Nantong Huaxia Plane Engineering Technology Co, which is also located in the Xingdong Airport, specializes in maintenance and repair services for small and medium-sized aircraft. Sharing the same investors as Apexair, Huaxia is the first listed plane maintenance company in China.

Huaxia has two hangars covering a total area of 16,000 sq m, large enough for maintenance work on eight business jets at one time.

In three years, the company plans to build another four to six hangars, a maintenance center, a plane parts bonded center and a research and development and training center. The total planned area of the company’s factories will reach 14 hectares.

Huaxia signed a maintenance mutual assistance agreement with China Eastern Airlines Executive Air, a business jet operation and management company owned by China Eastern Airlines, in late March.

Chen said the cooperation between Huaxia and China Eastern is an innovation in civil aviation maintenance.

At the exhibition, Apexair, Huaxia and Cyphy Technology, a big data management technology company in Xiamen in Southeast China’s Fujian province, formed a strategic cooperation alliance to establish a new type of aviation information platform.

Chen said he regards the three-party cooperation as a perfect combination of aviation industry and information technology services, which can better ensure aviation information security and stability.

Contact the writers at dingcongrong@chinadaily.com.cn and liyang@chinadaily.com.cn