Quick Takes – One Air Taxi, World Link Jet Charter, XLS+

New Cirrus Air Taxi in UK
Using the Cirrus SR22 G3, One Air Taxi will launch service from Fairoaks Airport in Surrey which includes a frequent flyer 25-hour Cirrus Card at $1,700 per hour. The new carrier recently received UK Civil Aviation Authority certification to operate its four-seat, single engine aircraft. The certification includes the ability to operate aircraft for other aircraft Cirrus owners and expects to expand that offering to Eclipse 500 owners.

Industry Vets Launch Charter/Management Firm
Three aviation professionals have announced the formation of a new Business Aviation Charter/Management company: MCZ Management, Inc. dba World Link Jet Charter. Steve Zerilli, Ed Carlton, and Paul Moore have leveraged their talents into a firm that understands the needs of aircraft owners and charter clients. Stressing lean economics and a boutique business model, World Link Jet Charter has developed an operating system that has minimized expensive overhead while leveraging the strengths of its employees.
“With the recent changes in the industry landscape, we saw an immediate need for a company that was right sized, with a systemic service culture” said Steve Zerilli, CEO. Paul Moore (COO) added, “We have built a very user-friendly operational control system that complies with the latest regulatory thinking. In fact we are ahead of the curve.”
All of the principles hold Airline Transport Pilot ratings and have a combined flight time in excess of 30,000 hours and together have 75 years of hands-on management.

Fuel Crisis Prompts Free First Year Expenses Offer from Diamond
Diamond Aircraft is offering its DA40 XLS customers free fuel for a year, meaning their operating costs will be only a little more than their monthly payments, according to the company, which launched the program recently. The piston aircraft has a fuel burn of 10 gph at 150 knots.
The offer is good for new customers during June and July and is limited to inventory on hand at Diamond distributors and includes free maintenance, insurance, fuel and training for the first year of operation - a $13,250 value.
"We are very excited about this offer: it allows our customers to finance 90 percent of the full purchase price of the aircraft, and enables them to have very few out-of-pocket costs during their first year of ownership," explained Premier Aircraft Sales President Fred Ahles, the Diamond distributor in Florida. "The DA40 XLS has always been a very economical plane to operate - typically costing less than $1,000 per month - and with this special offer, there are few costs beyond the monthly payments for the entire first year of ownership."
The offer for the piston aircraft comes at a time when the Diamond Jet program has achieved several milestones. Related Story In February, Diamond received a $19.6 million repayable investment in the D-JET project from the federal Government of Canada resulting in Diamond announcing it would manufacture the D-JET at its London, Ontario facility.
At the same time, the D-JET engineering flight test team moved to its new, larger home in its North Hangar.
“Bringing the team out of the smaller, remote, rented facilities to our main location, and equipping it with more hangar, office and test instrument space is critical as we pursue our accelerated certification schedule,” said the company. The move came shortly before it announced a higher nominal thrust FJ33-19 Williams engine which has receive positive customer response despite some delays in initial deliveries.
In April, the first flight of D-JET serial number 003 – took off to join the flight test program to tackle performance and handling quality refinement, as well as further testing and development of key systems, including avionics, auto-pilot and ice protection.

XLS+ Certificated
Cessna Aircraft Company reported the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted type certification (TC) to Cessna's Citation XLS+. With nearly 600 hours of flight testing, the XLS+ met Cessna's certification timeline goal.
The XLS+ features the fully integrated Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21 avionics suite and electronically controlled (FADEC) engines from Pratt & Whitney Canada. The Citation XLS+ at maximum takeoff weight will depart from runways as short as 3,560 feet (1,085 meters) at standard, sea-level conditions, travel as fast as 440 knots (815 kilometers per hour), have a range of more than 1,858 nautical miles (3,441 kilometers) and land on runways as short as 2,700 feet (823 meters) at its typical landing weight.
The original Citation Excel was delivered in May 1998, followed by the Citation XLS in July 2004. The 500th Excel/XLS was delivered in June 2006, making the Excel/XLS the best-selling aircraft of all business jet models since its introduction. The fleet of Excel/XLS aircraft comprises of nearly 650 planes with an accumulated total of more than 1.4 million flight hours.
The first XLS+ delivery is expected before the end of 2008.