MEBA10: ExecuJet aims for World Cup double

MD Mike Berry (pictured) is bullish about the prospects for the new Doha base, especially in light of the company’s success during the recent soccer World Cup in South Africa. He said: “We had a huge success with our FBOs there, handling around 99 per cent of traffic at Lanseria airport, with 2,230 movements during the event.”

Indeed, five of the international teams used ExecuJet’s services and on Sunday July 11 there were 187 aircraft on the ramp.

The World Cup has had a knock-on effect for ExecuJet. Berry added: “South Africa put our Cape Town facility on the map. We have had lots of international repeat business from companies who liked our approach and have used other facilities in our global network.”

Although a long way off, he foresees a similar impact in Russia (hosting the World Cup in 2018) and Qatar, and pointed out that the African country is particularly good at developing and retaining staff.

He said: “Qatar has a high GDP and naturally creates wealth, which means people can buy business jets.”

ExecuJet will bring aircraft under management into its Qatar fleet in the first instance, followed by building an FBO, although it has not decided whether that will be at the new or old airport yet. With such ambitious goals in its sights, it looks like the South African-headquartered group has netted a winner in Doha.