Paris Le Bourget FBO Euralair Airport Services (EAS) has renewed a five-year agreement to remain in the Exxon Mobil Avitat network until 2010. The French company is also preparing to move into new premises at Le Bourget as part of a deal with Belgium’s Flying Group, which will be taking over and rebuilding its existing facility.

In August, the Euralair SA holding company sold its Le Bourget building to Flying Group, a fast expanding business aviation venture that also has an FBO in Antwerp, Belgium, and has plans to build a new facility at Cannes-Mandelieu Airport in the south of France. It is also involved in fractional ownership, executive charter and aircraft management.

Under the terms of the deal with airport owner Aéroports de Paris, Flying Group will soon start rebuilding the former EAS facility, at which point EAS will relocate to another, as yet unspecified, location at Le Bourget. Flying Group will operate the existing site under a 25-year lease.

Euralair Airport Services was unaffected by the events that saw three of its Euralair air transport group sister companies seek bankruptcy in November 2003. The three firms were subsequently bought the following month, with a UK investor taking control of Euralair’s airline and executive charter operations and a Saudi Arabian company acquiring the maintenance division.

Today the full-service FBO claims a 20-percent market share of traffic at Le Bourget, handling some 9,000 movements each year. The 24-hour facility can handle aircraft up to the size of a Boeing 747, with full customs/immigration clearance available on site, as well as comprehensive flight planning facilities and services for both crew and passengers. This year it expects to deliver almost 925,000 gallons of fuel–roughly half the jet-A market at what is one of Europe’s foremost business aviation airports.

EAS is still owned by the Euralair SA group, which is controlled by Alexandre Couvelaire, who founded the operation 40 years ago as one of Europe’s first purpose-built FBOs.