A warm welcome to the June CEO Blog!
It’s been another busy couple of months with a few changes to the structure of Knight Aviation. Knight Aviation, as an operator, has now been absorbed into Knight Air with all fleet and flights transferred. This leaves Knight Aviation as the group holding company. Knight Aviation Cargo also saw a rebranding to Knight Air Cargo as part of this re-organisation with hubs opening at Leeds Bradford (EGNM/LBA), Teesside (EGNV/MME) and Hong Kong Chek Lap Kok (VHHH/HKG). Additional hubs will be added throughout 2025 to expand the global reach and offer a wide array of operations. Manx Airlines has joined the Knight Aviation Group and commenced operations from Ronaldsway, Isle of Man (EGNS/IOM) in the middle of May 2025. Currently operating the Cessna C208, DeHavilland Twin Otter and BAe 146, flights will be expanded later this year with the delivery of the BAC 1-11 and Airbus A319 airframes.
The aeroclub have had a number of online flying sessions over the past couple of months with the most recent being a, slightly belated, VE Day fly past with 4 Douglas DC3’s commemorating the event. These aircraft have now been placed into storage pending transfer to the UK register and delivery to their new home at Duxford (EGSU). Once this is complete the aircraft will see service on heritage flights from August 2025.
The online guided training, provided by GB Air Taxi and utilising the Knight Aeroclub, continues to deliver extremely positive results and a hearty congratulations to Grahame Bannister (KNT5533) on completing his Instrument Rating and Roger Harris (KNT5535) on completing his IMC rating, both under the supervision of Gray.
Fleet deliveries for June will see Knight Air expanding its business aviation operations with 2 additional 6 seat Cessna CJ4 Citation LBJ’s (M-OBIL and G-JMBO) and a 40 seat Airbus A319 ACJ (M-KATE). All 3 of these aircraft will be located at our business aviation hub at Blackpool (EGNH/BLK).
The livery applied to G-JMBO is by Void86 (flightsim.to) and has taken inspiration from “Jimbo”, a character which featured in the cartoon television series Jimbo and the Jet Set created by Peter Maddocks. We strongly recommend some reading on the operation of the CJ4 before attempting flights, especially for those more used to the larger airliners, as the speed and vertical navigation is managed quite differently.
The website continues to see development with the addition of new flight tools which are especially useful for general aviation pilots. The flight booking system has been changed so that it is now possible to see all flights, irrespective of your location. It is worth noting that an appropriate (assigned) aircraft will need to be at the start location before you can book a flight. Another small change sees the penalty for soft and hard landings being set at more realistic levels. Whilst this won’t impact on pilots, it will cause maintenance triggers for inspections when landing at under 50fpm or over 350fpm. Serious damage is now considered at 750fpm which could see the aircraft taken out of service for repairs…. please don’t!
A huge amount of thanks goes to Norman Blackburn (KNT544) who has started to look at applying Knight Air liveries for our fleet. It is hoped that we can see some of our current and classic liveries appearing in the near future. Our livery history is currently being detailed periodically on our facebook page and twitter profile as part of the #knightair25years celebrations.
I think that’s all for the blog this month. On behalf of us all at Knight Aviation, have a wonderful summer – here’s hoping the weather is kind to us! The next blog post will be in August as we prepare for the autumn / winter period.
