Manufacturer wins major VLJ order as Etirc Aviation forms air-taxi joint venture with Turkish jewellery exporter
A Turkish air-taxi start-up has given Eclipse Aviation its biggest order by far outside North America, with chief executive Vern Raburn predicting an "exploding world market for very light jets".
Luxembourg-based Etirc Aviation is ordering 120 Eclipse 500s, plus options for 60, and will operate them in a joint venture with Turkish jewellery exporter Atasay, providing air-taxi services in Turkey and the surrounding region from early next year.
Etirc, which signed an agreement to distribute the VLJ in most of eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union at EBACE last year, has committed to an undisclosed number of Eclipses, including an order for 40 earlier this year.
The company, founded in 2002 by Dutch former IT entrepreneur Roel Pieper, is not a distributor in the traditional sense. Etirc plans to "develop the market" for Eclipse and operate the aircraft in joint ventures with local businesses.
Raburn says that, like Atasay, Eclipse customers tend not to be "traditional aviation companies, who are not early adapters of new ideas - they are coming in with a different view, without the prejudice". Growing global wealth means businesses are "seeing the correlation between speed and productivity and demanding good-value aircraft", he says.
After several delays, Eclipse, which has an orderbook for 2,600 aircraft, is moving towards volume production, with 50 aircraft under construction, including 12 in final assembly at its Albuquerque, New Mexico plant. Output will be "in the hundreds" this year, moving "above 1,000" in 2008, says Raburn. Its biggest customer, Florida air-taxi start-up DayJet, which has 1,400 Eclipses on order, expects to start operations in July.
Source: Flight International
