Sino Jet expands outside of Greater China

Sino Jet, the Hong Kong-based management company headed by former Asian Business Aviation Association (AsBAA) chairperson Jenny Lau, has opened its first office outside of Greater China.

The company says that it chose Singapore as its first overseas location partly to its being in south east Asia, a region Sino Jet describes as important, but also due to Singapore’s having the highest percentage of net additions to its business aircraft fleet during 2018.

“Singapore is becoming a good springboard with an increasing number of our European and American clients flying in on commercial and connecting with private jets, especially when travelling to the remoter parts of Indonesia,” the company said in a statement issued to Corporate Jet Investor.

In April 2019 Jenny Lau, president, Sino Jet Group, told Corporate Jet Investor that she was stepping down from her role as head of AsBAA to concentrate on running Sino Jet.

Lau stepped down in June 2019, during the association’s annual general meeting, held in Singapore.
According to the company, the Singapore office opened officially in November 2019, and has already secured a management contract for an aircraft based in the region.

Singapore has two airports that are used by private jets. The main airport, Changi, is shared with commercial flights. Most business aircraft flights use Seletar Airport, which only has commercial flights to Kuala Lumpur’s Subang Airport.

According to Asian Sky Group’s 2018 year-end fleet report, there were 57 business aircraft based in Singapore at the end of 2018 – a 9.6% increase from the 52 aircraft based in the city-state at the end of 2017.

Although the fleet increased by 9.6% in 2018 to 57 aircraft, at the end of 2016 there were 60 business aircraft based in Singapore. The drop-in based aircraft in 2017 can largely be attributed to former Zetta Jet aircraft leaving the region, although some have since returned to Singapore to be based with OJets.