On Tuesday, during the opening day of NBAA 2018 in Orlando, Florida, a “first” was taking place over in Ireland when a new Embraer Lineage 1000 was delivered to Gainjet at Shannon Airport with an “EJ” registration. This was the first aircraft registered to the new Irish register to be delivered anywhere in the world. The EJ register falls under the auspices of the Irish Aviation Authority, which also has operated the EI register for 90 years.

Gainjet Ireland, a subsidiary of Athens, Greece-based Gainjet, was established in August 2015 (obtaining an AOC in June 2016) and has aircraft from several OEMs in its fleet. “It’s been an amazing year. We started at Shannon with three jets back in 2016. We chose Shannon because it is a strategically located European base that connects continents," said company CEO Ray Mills. "Moreover, thanks to the growing IASC [International Aviation Services Cluster], Shannon has become a major aviation hub for leasing companies and for Atlantic-crossing traffic.

“With the delivery of our latest jet, we now operate seven jets. We have plans to take delivery of further jets before the end of this year," he added.