EXECUTIVE JET Aviation (EJA) has ordered 20 Raytheon Aircraft Hawker 800XPs, representing the largest single order ever for Hawker business jets. The fractional-ownership specialist, which already has 22 Hawker 1000s, has also increased its order for the Cessna Citation X to 31, from 25.
The Hawkers are valued at more than $210 million, and the Montvale, New Jersey-based company has taken options on ten more 800XPs. It has also purchased an additional Hawker 1000, initially used for certification testing and flight demonstrations.
EJA will use the mid-size business aircraft in its US NetJets programme. NetJets will accept delivery of the first two 800XPs this year, five in 1998 and five in 1999. The remaining aircraft on order will be delivered by 2002. EJA chairman and chief executive Richard Santulli expects to exercise the outstanding aircraft options by the end of 1998.
Santulli is interested in the new $14.5 million Hawker Horizon "super mid-size" business jet which is replacing the Hawker 1000, but US certification of that is not due until the second quarter of 2001.
Raytheon Aircraft chairman Art Wegner believes that the Horizon "-is a logical aircraft for the EJA fleet". He adds that further block improvements to the Hawker 800XP are not being considered.
EJA ordered 45 Citations in 1996 - 20 Citation VIIs and 25 Citation Xs - in a $600 million deal, which was the biggest-ever corporate-jet order. Santulli says that the Citation X component of the order has now risen by a further six.
In 1986, EJA introduced the concept of fractional-ownership of aircraft in the USA and, in 1996, it extended it with the NetJets Europe programme. NetJets Europe is in the market for three mid-size business aircraft, and contenders include the Hawker 800XP, but not the Citation X, says Santulli. The selection will be announced at the Paris air show in June. NetJets Europe will operate six Citation S/IIs by the end of the year.
Santulli believes that Raytheon will launch its own fractional-ownership programme soon, with King Airs and Beechjets.
The last of the 947 Hawker 125s assembled by British Aerospace and its predecessors departed from Chester on 8 May for Raytheon's Wichita, Kansas, factory.
Source: Flight International
