Air Partner, the global aviation services group, has announced to report that it has enjoyed strong trading over the first five months of its financial year and now expects to surpass management expectations for the year ending 31 January 2022.
The Company, which holds its Annual General Meeting at 12.30pm today, is now trading well ahead of pre-COVID levels.
This performance has been driven in part by the ongoing high levels of activity in US Private Jets, where the large domestic market has enabled HNWIs to continue flying.
Trading is also strong in Group Charter, driven by government, sports and cruise sector work.
Meanwhile, Freight was busy at the start of the financial year, delivering COVID-19 test kits and vaccine raw materials, but this activity has now reduced.
As a region, Europe remains challenging, and the Group does not currently expect to see a material recovery until 2022.
The Private Jets performance continues to benefit from Air Partner’s JetCard programme, which allows clients to buy private jet flying ‘hours’ in advance, while offering fixed rates and the ability to change booking details at short notice, without penalty.
New JetCard sales in the current financial year, as at the end of June 2021, are up 36.8% versus the prior period and JetCard deposits now stand at £18.9m, up 6.2% on the year-end balance.
The Safety & Security division continues to see improvement as airports scale up operations in anticipation of increased passenger numbers.
Following the successful conversion of many of its safety training courses from classrooms to virtual delivery, Baines Simmons is seeing a strong recovery with the military sector, with customers including the UK Military Aviation Authority, Leonardo and the Royal New Zealand Defence Force.
Work with commercial aviation organisations remains subdued as a result of government restrictions; however, the Group sees strong potential going forward, particularly in design organisation, such as its work supporting Heart Aerospace on the design of an all-electric regional aircraft, and helping organisations to manage their risk as they prepare to scale up activity.
Government restrictions have also led to a slower recovery at Redline on account of low airport movements.
Despite this, in the financial year to date, the company has renewed nine contracts, totalling nearly £1 million, and secured five new business wins with Gatwick Airport, Doncaster Sheffield Airport, Teesside International Airport, DHL and the Welsh Parliament, worth a combined £191,000.
