Valo Aviation has become Bahrain’s first home-grown business jet charter operator, marking its formal launch at the country’s air show on 13 November with its first aircraft, a Kuwaiti-owned Gulfstream G550.
Chief executive Hanna Hakamo, who says the company spent two years working with the Bahrain regulator to achieve its air operator’s certificate (AOC), has big ambitions for the enterprise. She believes it could have up to 15 aircraft within two years.
The management company, which has no plans to own jets, is also in the process of obtaining the equivalent of Part 145 maintenance approval and plans to open a purpose-built hangar at Bahrain airport, says Hakamo, who previously worked for a European maintenance organisation.
She adds that the process of getting an AOC in Bahrain was challenging at times. “There was a lot of work to make this happen as we were working with a regulator more used to commercial airlines,” she says. However, she believes that Bahrain’s “central location” as well as the regulator’s “business-friendly approach” will help attract other private jet owners to base their aircraft in the kingdom.
“This is very much our home. We have an ambition to grow the business aviation sector here in Bahrain,” she says.
While Valo Aviation’s first aircraft is a Gulfstream, Hakamo says the company is also working closely with local representatives of Dassault. The main image on its web site is a Falcon 8X.
Bahrain has flirted with business aviation operations in the past, but none have survived the course. The United Arab Emirates – and particularly Dubai – remains the epicentre of the industry, with dozens of management companies, fixed-base operations and brokerages based there. Saudi Arabia has the region’s largest number of business jet owners and users in the region, although many aircraft operating out of there are registered elsewhere.
