London, England, January 29 2010 – London Executive Aviation (‘LEA’), one of Europe’s largest business jet charter operators, is looking to the 40th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Switzerland to provide a global confidence boost this week.
George Galanopoulos, managing director of LEA, says: “We are flying a number of people to and from the event, which is good for our business, of course, but more importantly we are looking to the Forum to help rebuild financial stability and trust across the world. A confident and inspiring stance from the delegates in Davos could really help strengthen the international economy.”
Some 2,500 leaders from the worlds of business, government and civil affairs are attending the meeting from January 27-31. The news this week that the UK has officially exited recession will no doubt already have been a welcome topic of conversation at the event.
Galanopoulos says: “Leaving the recession behind is such an encouraging feeling. We’re genuinely optimistic that European business aviation traffic will rise in 2010 over 2009. For us, the year has already started well and year-to-date business is up 15% on the same period in 2009.”
LEA chief executive Patrick Margetson-Rushmore adds: “Despite the challenging times in executive aviation in the past 18 months, we’ve continued – and we still are continuing – to expand our fleet. It undoubtedly remains a good time to buy used aircraft, so we’re seeing new owners enter the market and then turn to us for management and charter services.
“In fact, we’re actually in the process of adding two aircraft to our fleet right now – an Embraer Legacy 600 and a Cessna Citation XLS – which demonstrates our confidence in the future. With those jets on board, we’ll be operating a fleet of 24 aircraft.
“The stated goal of the World Economic Forum is a commitment to ‘improve the state of the world’. A vibrant business aviation sector will really help to meet that objective in 2010.”
