Aviation Week Show News - November 11, 2007 - (Page 13)

BUSINESS AVIATION D U B A I 2 0 07 NAS Expects to Have 142 Aircraft by 2010 Saudi Arabia’s National Air Services (NAS) will boost its commercial and business aviation fleet to 142 aircraft by 2012 after signing $3.65 billion worth of orders since the beginning of the year. NAS signed up for 60 business jets for its NetJets fleet of fractionally owned and leased aircraft, as well as 38 Airbus A320s for its Al Khayala scheduled all-business class service between the Saudi Arabian cities of Riyadh and Jeddah (as well as regional flights to Dubai)— and the recently launched NASair, Saudi Arabia first domestic budget carrier. The company is, it says, the largest and fastest-growing independent provider of aviation services in the Middle East. Here at the Dubai Airshow, NAS and the various manufacturers will be celebrating the deals done earlier this year, dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s and firming up options and delivery dates. On order are: • 38 Airbus A320 airliners with a list price of $2.25 billion. • 20 Dassault Falcon 2000LX business jets worth more than $500 million. NAS has signed initially for four firm orders, with an option for 16 to be finalized later this year. Deliveries will start in the third quarter of 2008 and run for six years. • 20 Gulfstream G450s worth up to $650 million. The initial signing NAS CEO Taher M.O. Agueel “We have taken up 17 options for G450s so that we can be flexible and responsive to the needs of the market, but we fully expect to take all 20 aircraft.” —NAS CEO Taher M.O. Agueel An NAS Gulfstream G450 was for three of the large-cabin jets with options on another 17. NAS CEO Taher M.O. Agueel told Show News, “We have taken up 17 options for G450s so that we can be flexible and responsive to the needs of the market, but we fully expect to take all 20 aircraft.” Deliveries will begin in the third quarter of 2009 and run until 2014. • 20 Hawker 750 jets with an esti- mated value in excess of $250 million. The order was the largest single placed in the region for business jets when signed last January. Delivery of the first aircraft was due this fourth quarter. NAS plans to finance the acquisitions via local, regional, and international financial institutions. “In such financing, NAS will rely on creative financial instruments that will provide attractive investment venues to capital market investors.’ said NAS Chairman General Ayed Al Jeaid. NAS is expecting to sell a portion of the company via an IPO in 2008 to share its success with Saudi investors in the capital market, he added. Action Aviation Is Taking Over the SJ30-2 U.K.-based Action Aviation, together with ACQ Capital of California, is in the final process of buying a controlling stake in Sino Swearingen, makers of the SJ30-2 light business jet, and taking it into volume production. Action Aviation’s chairman, Hamish Harding, flew his SJ30-2 from San Antonio, Texas, here to the show with just three stops; Goose Bay, Copenhagen and Ankara, Turkey, emphasizing the $6 million light jet’s very useful long range capability. SJ30-2 orders for the Middle East aren’t a problem, says Mike Creed, Action’s Dubai based managing director. “We’ve already taken 14 orders,” he says: “unfortunately up until now the problem was ramping up production to meet them.” Action Aviation also serves as MD Helicopter’s sales and distribution representatives for the Mid13 dle East and the Indian subcontinent. Creed says he has sold his first MD 902 Explorer to the Government of Ajman, UAE, and this Royal helicopter, complete with luxury VIP interior, is on the ramp here. Action has also been contracted to supply the first four EMS equipped MD Explorers to the Government of Qatar, through Gulf Helicopters, a Qatari off-shore oilfield helicopter operator. The first aircraft has arrived and operates from the roof of the Hamad Hospital in Doha. Action supAction sells the ATG Javelin jet and is now taking a share in the SJ-30. plies a turn-key operation with pilots and Although the definitive model is still a year or engineers based in Dubai for the Royal operation two away, Creed says that he feels that more sales and in Doha on EMS work. The company may also have a 12-seat $8.5 mil- will be for the military trainer version than the lion VIP Dornier 328Jet here as well, as it high performance tandem two seat business jet represents U.S. based Comtran International concept. —Mike Vines which converts these mini airliners into very comfortable executive jets. The ATG Javelin full-size mock-up here also has an Action Aviation connection, with the U.K. company representing this two seat space age personal transport. November 11, 2007 www.aviationweek.com/shownews http://www.aviationweek.com/shownews

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Aviation Week Show News - November 11, 2007

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