Blink Opens Second Base at Geneva

By: Charles Alcock

September 24, 2009
Charter

European very light jet (VLJ) air-taxi service Blink has opened a second base at Geneva. The operator is also about to take delivery of the seventh of 30 Cessna Citation Mustangs that are on firm order and plans to base two of the twinjets in Geneva.

The rest of the fleet is currently based at the London-area Farnborough Airport or nearby Blackbushe Airport. Blink expects to receive its own aircraft operator’s certificate (AOC) from the UK Civil Aviation Authority by October 1.

This will mean that it will no longer have to operate under the AOC of Tag Aviation, as it has done since the service launched in June last year. Blink has plans to open a network of other bases at various locations around Europe to minimize aircraft positioning costs.

Meanwhile, competitor London Executive Aviation, which currently has six Citation Mustangs in its fleet and 14 more on order, today said at a VLJ conference in Oxford, UK, that VLJ air taxis are still at the “ideas stage of an unproven market.”

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