Charter group Zetta Jet is expanding its all-Bombardier fleet, with the addition of four Challenger 650s. In a deal signed at NBAA 2016 in Orlando on Sunday afternoon, the Singapore-based operator will lease the 12-seat twinjets from China’s Minsheng Financial Leasing, which placed the order valued at $129.4 million.
Zetta Jet is adding the 4,000-nm-range aircraft to offer a more affordable option than its existing longer-range fleet consisting of four Global 6000s, two Global 5000s, a Global XRS and a pair of Global Express jets. The new aircraft will operate out of the company’s North American hub in Los Angeles, and deliveries have already begun.
“What we’re doing is pulling our service down one class of cabin to offer something that is a bit more affordable,” said Zetta Jet managing director Geoffery Cassidy. “It’s more for domestic U.S. [flights], transatlantic to Europe, and then we’ll extend it to the rest of the world. It’s a feeder product for our Global product because we’ve got some customers for whom the Global is too big.”
On the NBAA static display, Zetta Jet also is exhibiting one of its Global 6000s, featuring a 14-passenger cabin that can be reconfigured to provide beds for between five and seven people. The aircraft features Rockwell Collins’s Venue cabin management system and Bombardier Wave wireless connectivity package, based on Honeywell’s JetWave hardware and Inmarsat’s Ka-band JetConnex service. The cockpit is built around Bombardier’s Vision flight deck with a synthetic vision system and MultiScan radar as standard equipment, as well as an optional enhanced vision head-up display.
