Gama Aviation sales up 45% in first six months of 2017

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Gama Aviation

Gama Aviation, the London Stock Exchange AIM listed business aviation company, has had a strong start to 2017 with sales up 45% to $291 million for the first six months of the year. Underlying operating profit was $7.7 million compared to $5.9 million for the same half year in 2016.

“We built up a lot of momentum in 2016 and it is really great that we kept the momentum going into 2017,” says Marwan Khalek, CEO and co-founder of Gama Aviation. “We are really pleased to see both revenue and profit growth and perhaps most importantly, every single division contributed to this.”

Sales at Gama Aviation’s US Air division were up by 45%.  These were helped by the merger of BBA’s Landmark Aviation business and Gama Aviation’s management agreement with Wheels Up, the fast growing membership company. Gama Aviation now manages more than 200 aircraft in the US. The company says that the two business will be fully merged by the end of the year.

“The integration of the BBA aircraft management into the US Air division is progressing well and benefitting from a buoyant US market,” says Khalek.

Without joint ventures, Gama Aviation’s sales only rose slightly, helped by the weakness of the British pound, but profits rose significantly. Sales in the Europe Air division actually fell as the company ended unprofitable contracts from Gama Aviation’s reverse takeover of Hangar8 – but profit rose significantly.

“The Man of the Match award for this period goes to our European team,” says Khalek. “We spent a lot of time restructuring this business in 2016 and these improvements are now clear.”

The US accounted for up 81% of sales. ”Europe is still a key market and very important to us,” said Kevin Godley, CFO of Gama Aviation. “It contributed $4.4 million in gross profit and will always be a substantial market.”

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