Firms offered share of plane By NIGEL MALTHUS

Press, 22 July 1988, Page 4

Firms offered share of plane

By NIGEL MALTHUS

Companies seeking the benefits of their, own executive aircraft but who cannot justify buying one of their own are being offered the next best thing by a Canterbury firm.

Christchurch Corporate Charters, half-owned by Lasercorp Holdings, runs a Cessna Golden Eagle twin as, in effect, Lasercorp’s private executive plane.

The firm has recently been granted an air transport licence, allowing it to charter to third

parties, and is now inviting other firms to share the plane. Canterbury Corporate Charters’ operations manager and chief pilot, Mr Allen Bunn, said that they were approaching “selected companies” to see what their executive travel needs were and how they could fit in with them.

The company would also soon advertise the service more widely. “It is very much a personal, individual service,” said Mr Bunn. The seven-seat aircraft was formerly used by the

Royal Flying Doctor Service in Western Australia, and that heritage of having to fly over vast distances in often marginal conditions is reflected in its specifications.

The plane is air-condi-tioned, fitted with weather radar and other avionics for all-weather, day and night operation, and special flaps for short take-offs and landings. Long-range tanks give it a usable range, with reserve, of about 1600 km — enough, said Mr Bunn, to consider island-hopp-ing into the Pacific.

Being pressurised to 25,000 ft and capable of a 200-knot cruise, put it in the same operational class as the Friendship and Hawker-Siddeley aircraft flown by Air New Zealand and Mount Cook Airlines, he said.

It was the only aircraft of its type in Christchurch available for charter work, said Mr Bunn.

The plane was imported in January last year and refurbished by a Hamilton firm, entering service in its new Lasercorp livery in May.

Mr Bunn said that it had always been their

intention to use it initially as Lasercorp’s private plane, then "in slow time” expand the service. The Air Transport Licence allowing that was granted in May this year.

“You cannot offer a service until the licence is granted, and it is always difficult when setting up to set a target date that you can stick to,” said Mr Bunn. A partner in the venture, as Christchurch Corporate Charters’ chief executive, is Mr Bruce Fulton, former manager of the Canterbury Aero Club.