Albinati Aeronautics (LUC, Geneva) is positioning itself as a boutique aircraft management company with a fleet of twenty aircraft providing "Swiss quality" throughout Europe, sales chief Rolf Kuijper told ch-aviation in an interview during EBACE in Geneva.

"As a medium-sized management company, we remain agile and put an immense emphasis on really understanding who our owners are [in order] to design a service uniquely tailored to them. For our clients, it makes a difference to connect with a customer service team who knows them. Knowing the customer so well simply isn't achievable for operators that manage a much larger fleet of aircraft," he said.

The company, which is focused on aircraft management and charters, prioritises safety and quality. "We need to remain competitive in the market but we don't ever consider lowering our standards. We are looking for customers who appreciate and value this."

Albinati Aeronautics aims to provide full transparency in its pricing to its customers. Kuijper said that the management fee comprises an unlimited number of flights and full CAMO and maintenance supervision, with no hidden costs "being charged left and right". To remain unbiased in its services, the operator has no in-house maintenance.

"We are independent from any maintenance provider. We tell our customers that, in a particular case, it's better for them to go to this or that MRO. We make sure we have pricing for every maintenance item so that it's very simple and transparent for the owner. And I think that's very important in aircraft management because maintenance is usually where most of the money goes," he explained.

AOC and fleet strategy

The operator currently has three aircraft on its Swiss AOC: one Challenger 604, one Falcon 8X, and one PC-12/47E. It plans to take delivery of its first Citation M2 in late 2024 and retired its only Global 5500, HB-JRJ (msn 60007), on July 8. It also has a Maltese AOC, Albinati Aviation (ULC, Malta International), which operates one Citation Latitude, three Falcon 7X, one Global 5000, three Global 6000s, and one PC-24. The company added its first Dassault Falcon 6X, 9H-DINA (msn 7), in late June and inducted it into service on the Maltese AOC on July 1. It is the world's first commercially available unit of the type.

In addition to the aircraft on its AOCs, the company also oversees the management and/or CAMO supervision of an additional Falcon 7X, one Challenger 3500, one Global 6000, and two Global 7500s.

Even though most of the operator's aircraft are currently on the Maltese AOC, Kuijper said the company will retain the Swiss one as it has customers for whom having a Swiss-registered aircraft is necessary.

The operator prioritises long-term partnerships with its customers. Although its fleet is currently geared towards larger, long-range aircraft, Kuijper said that Albinati Aeronautics' expertise extends to smaller aircraft too.

"Sometimes there is much more work with a small aircraft than with the large ones. At the same time, people don't expect to pay more for managing a PC-12 than they pay for managing a Global. But we also look at the advantages. It's more work, but it opens a market where we can get people into certain airports that we can't go with a jet. It may not always be very profitable, but it is an add-on service. It's not just about profit and revenue stream but about expanding services and being able to tailor to different needs," Kuijper outlined.

Charter business

Albinati Aeronautics does not own any of its aircraft. However, it is encouraging its customers to make their aircraft available for charter to generate additional revenue and lower the cost of ownership. Albinati Aeronautics can even waive the aircraft management fee entirely if the owner agrees to a sufficiently high availability of their aircraft.

Kuijper admitted that after a very strong charter market during the Covid-19 pandemic, except for its early phase, demand has now subsided. With the airline's charter fleet based around long-range aircraft, it benefitted from robust demand for transatlantic travel until the second half of 2023. Aided by the strong US dollar and the lower number of commercial flights, US American customers were frequently chartering aircraft to fly to Europe. Now, however, the situation is very different.

"Nowadays, the long-range charter business is dominated by operators who provide 'one-way' pricing. To succeed, you must thus combine two charter clients - one each way - to send a long-range aircraft across continents," Kuijper said.

The pressure on the charter yields is further exacerbated by overcapacity provided by large, charter-focused business aviation operators. Given Albinati Aeronautics' focus on high quality, the pool of customers willing to pay the required extra for such services is now limited.

"We've had to reduce charter margins, but also sometimes to say 'no' to flights. There's a massive cash flow involved in charter operations - is it worth operating a flight at a cost of USD200,000 for a couple of hundred profit? It's tricky," Kuijper said.