Page 6 - Volume 14 Number 7

While the experience piqued his interest in aircraft and planted the seed for learning to fly later in life, he never imagined that he’d one day operate an air charter business out of “The White Building” at Cardiff Airport, a facility that back then was the head office of the airline that was eventually absorbed into British Airways.
His was not a direct flight path, however. Howard had a successful career as a lawyer, learning to fly at age 40 and then using an airplane for business travel throughout the United Kingdom and Europe. When he decided to retire from practice in 2003, he hit on the idea of setting up the only air charter company based at Cardiff and the first in Wales to offer jet-engine aircraft.
DragonFly Aviation Services Limited, which acquired the airline’s old call-sign of Cambrian, turns 16 this year and has flown more than 12,000 commercial charter hours, nearly all in Beechcraft King Air 200 series aircraft.
Filling an unmet need in Cardiff
His father was an engineer who had his own small garage, which stoked Howard’s lifelong interest in cars. (He owns a rare 1957 Daimler Drophead Coupé, of which only 57 were made, and a BMW Z1 that he bought new
4 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
in 1990 and has driven fewer than 1,000 miles per year.) While aviation was also an interest, neither became his career.
Instead, he became a lawyer. He spent his first 20 years in the practice he joined out of law school, then started his own practice with two junior partners in 1992. What he intended to be a boutique firm specializing in litigation, principally acting for insurance companies, rapidly expanded into a large practice so that in five years the firm employed 70 lawyers and a total head count of 130. It was during that time that he realized the time savings of flying himself to visit his offices in five cities and clients located throughout the U.K.
“My interest in aviation was sufficient for my wife to make the inspired choice of a trial flight as a present for my 40th birthday,” Howard said. “I very much enjoyed that, signed up for some lessons and qualified for a pilot’s license in 1990. With a friend who is a true aviation enthusiast, who had also qualified for his license, I bought a Socata TB-200, an attractive, modern and well-built four-seat, single-engine French aircraft. Flying this aircraft around the U.K. for business and realizing the savings of time that could be achieved prompted me to set up DragonFly 10 years or so later.”
JULY 2020