Inside Flexjet’s New Farnborough Terminal and Red Label Academy Expansion

Flexjet just opened a new terminal at Farnborough airport. The building includes a new European operations center and an extension of its Red Label Academy. SherpaReport toured the new building during the opening ceremony.

New Building

Farnborough Airport is London's primary private aviation gateway.

The new two-story ramp-side building covers an expansive 2,098 sq m (22,580 sq ft) and cost $34 million. Downstairs is the extension for the Red Label Academy and the glass-fronted private terminal overlooking the ramp and runways; upstairs is the new operations center.

At the opening ceremony, Flexjet Chairman Kenn Ricci said: “This opening establishes one of the most significant branded luxury environments in private aviation and is a defining moment in Flexjet’s global expansion. It is our most ambitious infrastructure completion to date, beyond our North American headquarters.

Flexjet Private Terminal

The private Flexjet terminal is separate from the airport’s existing main terminal and provides seamless ground-to-air private hospitality exclusively for Flexjet passengers, before or after boarding one of the company’s fleet of 350+ private jets and helicopters.

The terminal’s contemporary interior, led by Carver Hain Art + Design, puts modern luxury at the forefront, with private spaces and features including:

• The Owners Bar & Lounge, situated in the center of the terminal with floor-to-ceiling views of the airfield, offering a bar menu including signature cocktails.
• The Flexjet Gulfstream G700 Fuselage Lounge. A full-size recreation of the company’s flagship ultra-long-range cabin, including a private master bedroom suite.
• Private meeting spaces, accessible only to Flexjet owners and their guests.
• Dedicated security screening and immigration, provided by Farnborough Airport.

The new opening, a first for Flexjet in Europe, adds to the growing network of nine private terminals in the United States already established or under development.

Red Label Academy

The new building hosts an expanded Red Label Academy, a finishing-school-style training center for Flexjet’s nearly 300 global cabin servers. Every Flexjet flight in Europe and every large-cabin US flight has a dedicated cabin server, and all these staff go through initial training at the Academy and return for annual updates. As Flexjet planned the new building, they considered closing the original Red Label Academy, housed in a nearby building, but with continued growth of its large-cabin fleet - reaching 70 aircraft - it now intends to keep both locations.

Flexjet’s Vice President of Customer Experience, Francesco Vanerio, leads the training Academy and brings his extensive five-star hotel experience to private aviation. The Academy features several specialized training environments designed to simulate real-world service scenarios, including:

• A mock-up G650 cabin section to allow trainees to practice in a realistic aircraft environment.
• Several mock-up galley areas, designed to mimic typical cabin configurations, which are assigned to a crew member for two training weeks at a time.
• A bar area used for cocktail training.

The training includes culinary classes, cocktail making, sushi training, and exposure to all the items that they might face in the cabin environment.

On the SherpaReport tour, we enjoyed a cheese tasting and training course led by Patrick McGuigan. Flexjet works with Patrick to train its cabin servers on all aspects of cheese, including presentation and accompaniments. Patrick has literally written the book (and a few more) on cheese; he also writes for national newspapers and is one of the leading judges at the World Cheese Awards. He’s an example of how Flexjet looks for someone to work with: they go find the most skilled people in their field.

Patrick walked us through a cheese tasting, pairing each cheese with a very fine wine, and then walked through and had us practice laying out a cheeseboard – just as he would for training the cabin servers. An interesting part of the Flexjet philosophy is that they want their cabin servers to feel comfortable and knowledgeable about finding good cheeses wherever they are on their travels. So they have the autonomy to choose great food and drinks, including cheeses, if a fractional owner requests them.

Operations Center

The new state-of-the-art Tactical Control Center and European headquarters for Flexjet’s operations and support staff is located on the upper floor of the new building.

The Control Center (pictured below) oversees European flights and liaises with the Global Operations Center at the company headquarters in Cleveland. 

In addition to the new terminal building, Flexjet has also recently opened a new 3,530 sq. m. (38,000 sq. ft.) Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) hangar facility on the Farnborough Airport site. This provides dedicated maintenance for Flexjet’s global fleet, optimizing dispatch reliability and adding to its 1,500+ global maintenance team members based in 15 destinations worldwide - the largest in-house MRO network in private aviation.

Commenting on the overall expansion, Kenn Ricci noted: “This remarkable facility is a testament to how aircraft ownership with Flexjet extends far beyond the cabin, unlocking a lifestyle defined by exceptional convenience, effortless access and enriching experiences the world over.”