XOJet Revenue Rises, Company Seeks To Add More Aircraft

Following a first quarter that saw it capture a claimed 34 percent of the U.S. market for charter flights exceeding three hours, XOJet plans to add three or four aircraft this year to its owned and operated fleet of 41 Bombardier Challenger 300s and Cessna Citation Xs, XOJet president of commercial operations James Henderson told BJT sister publication Aviation International News.

“We’ve been spending the last few weeks doing very detailed financial analysis and projections, based on which type of aircraft, what age, [and] the maintenance costs,” he said. No fleet retirements are anticipated this year.

Quarterly revenue growth was led by XOJet's charter brokerage arm, which was up 39.5 percent year-over-year, according to Henderson. While it benefited from a spike in overall demand for large-cabin jets, XOJet—owned by TPG Capital and Mubadala—has no plans to add large-cabin or other aircraft models to its fleet of midsize jets.

“The reason we operate very efficiently is because we operate [only] two types of aircraft in one class,” Henderson said, with each individual aircraft flying an average of 100 hours per month. The company’s next goal is to increase its share of the charter market for flights of one to three hours, currently at 19 percent, Henderson said.