Air BP (Stand 847) is reaping the benefits of an increased focus on serving business aviation customers, and targeting growth in the Middle East where it recently appointed a new sales manager, and has grown its local team as it continues to increase the number of airport where it provides fuel and other services. Currently this is around five airports/sites in the Middle East but this is set to expand fast with the latest addition being Dubai Festival City’s new heliport.

Miguel Moreno, Air BP’s general manager for general aviation, told AIN that he has a team here at the MEBA show to inform visitors about company’s full capabilities, which now include consultancy on fuel options and its Omega operations manual for general aviation. He also mentioned the oil company’s new partnership with flight planning portal Rocketroute.com as evidence that Air BP is now more than just a fuel supplier.

“We work with our customers, and for example we offer a Sterling Card and Citi Visa reward card,” said Moreno. “We have 650 sites around the world and if the customer knows their most important airport, we aim to offer security of supply there through a service level agreement. This way they also get a shorter delivery time and avoid queues. At most airports at which we work we have business aviation dedicated teams and refuellers.”

FBO Service

According to Moreno, Air BP can deliver a full service fuel package that can be established at almost any location. “Another area we are developing is partnering with FBOs,” he said. “For example Gama [Aviation] at Sharjah, and also in Glasgow [in Scotland] too… both facilities are really happy with the results of our collaboration.”

On the consultancy side Moreno said, “We have different tools to give different opportunities to customers. We can look at fixed-price deals, caps, etc. through our trading department.”

While he admitted that the airlines represent “a huge business in volume terms” Moreno was keen to stress that airlines were handled by “completely different team” out of the Air BP regional office, which is located here in Dubai. “Business aviation is another world–and my team only focuses on business aviation in the five continents,” he said. This presence serving business aviation worldwide had been “growing for the past five yeas, even through the market difficulties.”

“The combination of our idea of being close to the customers and their airports is important, and we are offering to expand. We have 650 airports now and we are expanding our presence for example in China, in France–it’s a constant effort to get more sites,” said Moreno. He admitted that being part of a global company is “a huge advantage” for BP Aviation’s business aviation ambitions. “For example, most of the Middle East customers flying to Europe are already with us. We also have similar in China, Africa, etc.,” he explained.

In North America, Air BP withdrew from its joint venture with Epic Aviation in February 2012 in order to offer its services to FBOs and operators direct. “We are getting more and more customers [there],” said Moreno. “We have lots of ideas on how to get a stronger position in the U.S. [market]. It took some time but now we are growing 20 percent year-on-year. More and more customers are going for the Sterling Card, for example.”

Back in the Middle East, Air BP has been eying the lucrative Saudi Arabian market after making good progress in the Gulf. “We have plans all around the Middle East and we are talking [about new opportunities in Saudi Arabia] but we can’t expand on this at the moment…but the Middle East is one of the busy hubs now and in the future. We have been very focused on Dubai,” Moreno said.