New research is likely to boost the island’s reputation for business jets registration, it emerged today.

The Isle of Man now has the second largest number of registered private jets in Europe. Only Germany has more, according to Colibri Aircraft, which specialises in the marketing, resale and purchase of pre-owned private aircraft.

Simon Williams, director of civil aviation in the Isle of Man said he was ’thrilled to bits’ by the findings.

Speaking to Business News just before heading for Geneva and the huge EBACE event, attended by thousands of movers and shakers in the business aviation world, Mr Williams said he and his team were focused on providing a quality service for clients.

He said a total of 940 business planes have now been registered by the island around the world during the last 10 years.

Key findings from the new Colibri research include:

lAs of April 2017, there were 325 business jets registered in Europe from the Isle of Man, down 9.5 per cent from a year earlier (359)

l Germany has the largest number of registered business jets in Europe (404) followed by the Isle of Man (325)

l There are 2,367 business jets registered in Europe, a rise of 78 or 3.4 per cent on 2016.

For last year as a whole, 90 new business jets were delivered to Europe compared to 97 in 2015.

The Isle of Man was more than 100 ahead of the UK which had 223 business jets registered in Europe.

The new data from Colibri Aircraft comes as thousands are gathered in Geneva for Europe’s biggestprivate jet show called EBACE 2017, which began onMonday and finishes today (Wednesday)

Oliver Stone, managing director, Colibri Aircraft said: ’The European private jet market is the third biggest in the world after North and South America, and the overall number of private jets in the Continent is increasing.

’However, there are currently more sellers than buyers so prices of pre-owned business aircraft have been falling.’

A string of island businesses are represented at the major event including aviation teams from Estera, Equiom and Knox House.

Simon Williams, the island’s director of civil aviation, told Business News he expects to be kept very busy duting the three day gathering. This month has seen the 10th anniversary of the island’s aircraft registry and Mr Williams said there is still a good chance they might reach 1,000 registrations by the end of the year.

There are now business planes all over the world carrying the Isle of Man prefix which is M followed by four letters. New business planes can cost an eye-watering 50 to 60 million dollars.

The Isle of Man is now home to the world’s sixth largest international private/corporate business aviation registry.

And notably we are ahead of the UK in that list.