Luminair Grows Charter Fleet with Nine Citation Latitudes

European charter operator Luminair is set to almost double the size of its fleet with an order for nine Cessna Citation Latitudes. The deal was announced with manufacturer Textron Aviation today—on the eve of Aero Friedrichshafen.

Funds for buying the super-midsize jets have come from Luminair’s investors, with deliveries set to run from third-quarter 2026 through mid-2027. As with the Germany-based company’s other aircraft, the Latitudes will be operated commercially under asset leases based on a per-flight-hour cost structure. 

According to Luminair CEO Algernon Trotter, the Latitude closes a gap in its service offering between its five Citation XLSs, four large-cabin Dassault Falcon 900LXs, and a pair of Falcon 7Xs. It is viewed as a key tool for customer retention when lack of capacity could drive bookings to rival operators.

“This allows us to upgrade trips to maintain our high scale of operations, with a smaller gap in the fleet so that we can put Latitude passengers on a Falcon if we need to. It means we have a sort of flight buffet for customers,” Trotter explained. In his view, it would be too much of a stretch to substitute a Falcon for one of the XLSs.

Since its launch in 2014, Luminair has prioritized high fleet utilization, following the same philosophy of Air Hamburg, where its leadership team originated. Each aircraft is currently logging up to around 1,000 hours per year, and with its longer sectors, the company believes the Latitudes may well reach 1,100 hours.

The Hamburg-based start-up now has 150 employees with three sets of flight crew assigned to each aircraft to ensure availability and be ready to respond to short-notice bookings. The company started operating 18 months ago with a single XLS and by the summer of 2027 should have 23 aircraft, which Trotter said puts it five years ahead of the schedule for its business plan.

Challengers and Praetors in the Running

Luminair considered Bombardier’s Challenger 3500 and Embraer’s Praetors, but Trotter said these were not seen as being as reliable and cost-effective. “I love Textron products. The XLS is so reliable and with good performance like a VW [car], with plenty of redundancy for high utilization,” he commented. “We don’t have aircraft coming back to a base [in its floating fleet model], and we have no line maintenance.”

According to Textron’s Europe-based sales vice president, Duncan Van De Velde, the nine-passenger Latitude has direct operating costs of around $2,300 per hour, with a maximum range of 2,700 nm and a cruise speed of 446 knots.  “It is great for Europe because with its landing performance [3,580 feet takeoff field length], you can go anywhere using small airports,” he said.

Another key reason Luminair has chosen another in-service Citation model is that it needs certainty that the infrastructure will be in place to support assured operations. This starts with crew training for the Garmin 5000 flight deck, which is readily available through FlightSafety International, and extends to the maintenance network available through Textron’s facilities across Europe, including its large parts warehouse in Düsseldorf, Germany.

“We are never going to be the first to buy a new aircraft type like the Falcon 10X,” Trotter reflected. “We need to be on the leading edge of utilization, not technology, and so we cannot be the first operators because we have to know the crew training, parts, and maintenance will be there for us.”

This is why Luminair feels comfortable having waited almost 10 years since the Latitude first entered service to select the type. It has been encouraged by the extensive experience with the aircraft of fractional ownership provider NetJets Europe.

In the current operating climate—blighted as it is by the fallout from the Iran war—operators like Luminair need all the efficiency and flexibility they can muster. Trotter told AIN the company has been refocusing operational priorities with less traffic to and from the Gulf region, replaced in part by African trips, with some repatriation missions too.

Quizzed about the imminent prospect of jet fuel supplies running out in Europe, Trotter said that the ability of its fleet to nimbly move between multiple airports should give it options. “We are lucky, given the type of aircraft we operate in, that we can land at quite a high landing weight [for fuel tankering],” he explained. “Unlike the airlines, we can be more flexible; we can go where the fuel is.”

Based on experience around the Covid pandemic, Luminair anticipates that airlines will start cutting routes, drawing customers to business aircraft charters. “Airline instability boosts private aviation. The money is always there for people who need to get somewhere, and that gives scope for us to benefit,” Trotter concluded.