Contributor - Middle East

Peter Shaw-Smith

GI Aviation, the Abu Dhabi-based business aircraft charter operator launched early last year, is shutting down after its attempt to introduce regional charter operations with the Pilatus PC-12 turboprop single was unsuccessful. “Tomorrow is our last day of trading,” W. Patrick Gordon, GI Aviation’s general manager, told AIN.

 


He said the two PC-12s operated by the company have been put on the market. “One has already been registered for sale out of Denver, with that sale in negotiations with a buyer. If [the second aircraft] doesn’t sell [close to this region], we will also take it to the U.S., where the biggest market exists for the PC-12.”

 


The industry veteran said that operating under the same airline regulatory framework as Emirates and Etihad, as mandated by the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority, has proved costly and unworkable for the charter operator.

 


Gordon, who lives in Florida when not working as an ex-pat, has been a champion of business aviation in the Middle East since the late 1970s, serving in stints such as interim president and CEO at Abu Dhabi charter operator Royal Jet, training captain at UAE Presidential Flight, and pilot at the Ministry for Petroleum and Mineral Resources in Saudi Arabia, among others.

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