2Excel, the aviation services company, has announced a corporate partnership with the Air League, the leading aviation and aerospace charity which focuses on changing lives through aviation.
The charity’s core purpose is to inspire people from all backgrounds into the aviation industry and to champion British aviation and aerospace. Each year many hundreds of aspiring young people benefit from Air League support to help them start a career and build self-esteem and well-being.
Scholarships and outreach programmes create life-long impacts on beneficiaries, many of which stay involved throughout their careers – including several 2Excel employees, who started out in aviation thanks to Air League scholarships.
Tony Rae, 2Excel Aviation’s Employees’ Board Director and Chairman of the Management Board, said: ‘‘As we grow as a company, its increasingly important that we play our role within the wider aviation community, particularly with encouraging young people to think of aviation as a career but also to engage with policy makers and try to influence them.
Our larger Government customers also see this engagement as part of the overall fabric for an aviation company increasingly being relied upon to provide national capabilities.
When I was 17 I applied for and was awarded an Air League flying scholarship which gave me the confidence to pursue aviation as a career. I have been really fortunate in what followed and I am personally pleased that we are now corporate partners with the Air League.’’
As well as its charity activities, the Air League is influential in the national debate about the importance of the aviation and aerospace industries, how they fit into the ‘prosperity agenda’ and how British companies can continue to play an important role in the sector. As such, it can help shape UK Government policy thanks to a series of annual events which involve people from across industry and politics.
Nick West, the Air League’s Chief Executive, said: “The Air League is delighted to have 2Excel as a new corporate partner, as the company encapsulates its key values of leadership, ambition and endeavour. 2Excel is playing an increasingly important role in public debate on sustainability and the skills agenda in particular, and the Air League looks forward to working with the company to address these key issues.”
In April, former Red Arrows pilot Mike Ling, who now flies with 2Excel as part of the Blades Aerobatic Team, is due to be an inspirational guest speaker at the Young Aviators’ Dinner at the RAF Club in London, where the Air League is gathering up-and-coming aviation professionals and aspiring aviators.
Founded in 2005 by two Royal Air Force pilots, 2Excel has grown from five people and four aerobatic aircraft to over 450 people and a fleet of 32. In 2018, 2Excel Aviation became 51 per cent employee owned through the creation of an Employee Ownership Trust.
With an annual turnover of more than £45m, the rapid growth of the company’s business lines and capabilities has enabled 2Excel to become an emerging force in the market.
With bases at Sywell Aerodrome, Stansted Airport, Doncaster Sheffield Airport and Lasham Airfield, 2Excel’s customers include Government Departments, the defence and oil industries, airlines and airline brokers.
