Commercial director, Alastair Kiernan (pictured):

"We have a lot going on at Titan Airways at the moment. We have just purchased two additional Boeing 757-200 aircraft and took delivery of a brand new Citation CJ2+ in October last year – our md Gene Willson went to Wichita himself to pick up the aircraft.

We utilise the aircraft for our own crew positioning where it is convenient and sometimes when we are operating our larger aircraft out of airfields where schedules do not suit or even exist. We also operate crew swaps for other airlines. We already have a tie-up with airlines for the larger aircraft in regard to sub charter that we provide and with our hour to launch from confirmation service this is something that makes it a very easy option for a lot of carriers.

We also provide AOG support in regard to moving parts and engineers for our own purposes and for other airlines and operators, again at very short notice. We operate ad hoc charter as well as urgent charter for organ transplants and teams.

We sold the King Air which we purchased from new. After operating the aircraft for a few years we decided a jet would be more beneficial. The CJ2+ fitted our operation well and a deal was completed with Cessna directly for purchase in early 2011.

It has been a superb aircraft so far for performance, range and fuel burn. The CJ2+ was the best offer on the table at the time and this is why we opted for it instead of the CJ3. The aircraft is proving very popular with our clients and we already have a regular user group of the aircraft."

Managing director, Gene Willson:

"The aircraft was delivered late from production by Cessna, but they did keep us fully informed during the process. We ferried the aircraft back to our home base with just two fuel stops and a total flight time of just under 12 hours.

Post delivery, we have experienced a number of frustrating build quality issues, although these have been quickly resolved by our MRO Kinch Aviation. Our build spec included a number of safety enhancements not normally fitted to this size of aircraft, including such items as TCAS2 and EGPWS.

Compared to the previous King Air aircraft we operated we find the 100 kt speed increase really useful, as well as the ability to cruise at significantly higher levels. The benefit of the higher cruising levels means the aircraft can almost always cruise clear of icing cond-itions and provide an exceptionally smooth ride for our passengers.

We use the aircraft to back up our own fleet in the event of an AOG and several other airlines have used the aircraft for this purpose as well. It has already flown a number of high profile celebrities. It is unlikely we would operate more than one of these aircraft as the charter market for this size is extremely competitive and, were the aircraft and overhead costs not to be absor-bed within the rest of the airline infrastructure, it would be operating at a loss."