Designed Primarily For TBM Owners Who Fly Less Than 200 Hours Per Year

Daher today unveiled a new program that brings private and corporate TBM owners together with commercial operators ready to use these very fast aircraft for charter flights.

Named FACT – for Fly And Charter your TBM – this program was announced at the National Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition in Orlando, Florida by Daher, which manufacturers the TBM aircraft family.

“For private and corporate TBM owners who fly less than 200 hours annually, revenues generated by charter operators can help offset their ownership costs,” explained Nicolas Chabbert, Senior Vice President of the Daher Airplane Business Unit. “With FACT, we facilitate the contacts between owners and those seeking charter capacity, while also providing our expertise and guidance.”

Assistance offered by Daher in the FACT program includes contacts with potential operators interested in using owners’ TBM aircraft for charters, help in preparing documentation needed for these commercial operations, support in arranging insurance coverage, and a full spectrum of technical advice.

FACT also incorporates the TBM Charter Pack, Daher’s inclusive support solution for higher aircraft utilization rates. The TBM Charter Pack extends the aircraft manufacturer’s TBM Care Program (TCP) to cover commercial operations and provides continuing airworthiness monitoring through CAMP systems, while also offering a dedicated TBM maintenance hotline and TBM professional training courses.

The Daher TBM aircraft family is well suited for charters and on-demand transportation – especially from community airports where operations benefit from the aircraft family’s speed, economical operating costs and the ability to serve smaller runways. Demand for such services is growing worldwide, especially as more airworthiness authorities approve commercial flight operations with single-engine turboprops.
Commercial operators benefit from the TBM very fast turboprop’s superior performance and high efficiency: a maximum cruise speed of 330 kts., with a direct operating cost of $1.60 per naut. mile.

Augmenting the TBM family’s attractiveness for commercial and charter flights are Daher’s “Elite” cabin configurations that enable seating layouts for up to five passengers, with varying amounts of baggage or cargo. These arrangements include the new “Elite Privacy” quick-change lavatory compartment option, to be available for new-production aircraft from 2017.

Some 40 TBM family aircraft are utilized today in commercial charter and corporate services. Operators include Little Hawk Logistics, based at central Virginia’s Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport and Planemasters at West Chicago Illinois’s DuPage Airport in the United States; Wagga Air Centre in Australia’s New South Wales region; and France’s Voldirect – the first to operate a TBM in the framework of this country’s regulations enabling the use of TBM aircraft for public passenger transport in instrument flight conditions.

By combining its expertise in industrial manufacturing, product and process engineering, logistics and transport, as well as industrial services, Daher designs and develops integrated industrial systems. Daher has established itself as a leader in five fields of activity: aircraft manufacturing, aerostructures and systems, integrated logistics, nuclear services, and valves.

In 2015, Daher posted a turnover superior to one billion euros, and its order book stands at around three-and-a-half years of turnover. Driven by bold innovation ever since it was founded in 1863, Daher has established itself today as one of the major players of the factory of the future: Factory 4.0.

(Source: Daher news release)

FMI: www.tbm.aero