BBA to focus on core FBO business

BBA Aviation Services has sold two Signature-branded companies to UK helicopter engineering, advanced training and charter company PremiAir Aviation. The move is part of the company strategy to shed its non-core businesses, says Roy McGlone, the group's chief executive.

"We inherited Signature Aircraft Engineering [based at UK airfields Blackbushe and Denham] and [Denham-based] Signature Helicopters when we acquired Lynton Aviation [two years ago]", he says, adding: "With this acquisition we got the Morristown, New Jersey and London Luton Airport fixed-base operations [FBO] [Signature Flight Support] which are core to what we do.

"Helicopters, however are peripheral to our business and although we reviewed the helicopter charter market, we reached the conclusion that we could not grow it further," he says.

BBA is now concentrating its European business aviation efforts on growing its FBO chain, which ranks the largest in the USA.

Meanwhile, PremiAir says that the now-rebranded Signature acquisitions have strengthened its core market and have provided a springboard for the company's future growth in the UK and throughout Europe and the Middle East.

Source: Flight International