FOR a man who has spent a career in aviation and since 2009 has been chief executive of a business which now operates four flying schools, it is perhaps strange to note that Graeme Frater has only just had his first flying lesson.

“One of our instructors was prepped, his aircraft was fuelled and ready to depart and the customer didn’t turn up,” he regales from the company’s base at Glasgow Airport. “So on the spot I went for it and it was a beautiful crisp winter day, flying over Perth in a Cessna 152. I’d recommend it.”

The moment may have allowed Mr Frater a chance to reflect on how his business has grown in the last two years.

Cloud Global began life as a recruitment business for the aviation industry, sparked by an idea that staff recently made redundant by collapsed airline Fly Globespan would be looking for new jobs, Mr Frater among them, having worked at its operations control centre in Edinburgh.

Having worked at Glasgow Airport “pretty much since I left school” it was the natural base for his company – which was established with two partners, one of whom, Craig McDonald, remains with the business as technical director.

The grand sum of investment was £300 – divided equally among the partners.

“The theory was that there was staff at Fly Globespan who had been made redundant so there was an opportunity for a recruitment website, as a lot of colleagues were looking for jobs,” he says.

The investment was used to build a website, which “gathered momentum quickly with major airlines doing recruitment though it”, says Mr Frater.

AviationMatch remains a critical area of the business, with airlines such as Emirates and Etihad recruiting pilots and engineers from the website.

Observing the aviation industry intently, as one must when running a recruitment business, Mr Frater began to see opportunities to accelerate growth.

“We quickly moved into other areas, aircraft component support, and buying parts, which we found to be a lucrative industry,” he says.

From there the next logical step was to buy and lease aircraft, for use by flying schools. The company has since built up a fleet up 20 aircraft, which although cementing its success brought with it a new challenge.

“We had a business review and it was clear that our biggest overhead was aircraft maintenance,” says Mr Frater.

That led, in December 2016, to the acquisition of ACS Aviation in Perth, which did its own maintenance.

It was a landmark deal for the growing company, lifting turnover to more than £3.5 million. The deal, says Mr Frater “made perfect sense” as it allowed Cloud Global to bring its maintenance in-house.

Part of that deal included the operation of Perth Airport, which is home of the Scottish Aero Club, Scotland’s oldest and largest flying club.

“We’ve now successfully run the flying school at Perth for over a year, business is looking very positive,” says Mr Frater.

Almost exactly one year on the company had struck another deal – and this one was even more important.

In December 2017, Cloud Global acquired Carlisle-based Border Air Training. This gave the business a base in England, but through Border’s Fly Scenic Scotland offshoot it provided Cloud Global with an Air Operator Certificate (AOC), allowing it to carry passengers for the first time.

“That brings a new dimension to the business. They have an AOC, we have all the right things in place to support that with regards to engineering and pilots, so we see that area of the business as the area that is going to have the most growth over the next 12 to 24 months,” says Mr Frater.

Heading into 2018, the business now runs four flying schools, in Perth, Oban, Cumbernauld and Carlisle.

The Fly Scenic Scotland business is being expanded with a full schedule of sightseeing flights planned for the year. Two four-seater airplanes will take sightseers up the west coast, taking in lochs and mountains.

“There is a huge demand there from the tourism market over the summer months,” he says. “A lot of customers are going to be coming for that, a big number of international tourists up on those flights.

With American tourists already booking up tickets for this summer, Mr Frater said that side of the business is ripe for growth.

“The AOC opens up the business. We’re available to do various commercial contracts, ad-hoc charters or survey flights for example. We get various requests. It’s again another dimension we can add.”

Elsewhere, the company has recently invested in a flight simulator which is used in commercial training for multi-engine instrument rating training.

“The growth in the last year has been phenomenal, because we’ve invested in new equipment, new aircraft, simulators and experience instructors,” he says.

This year the plan is to consolidate, says Mr Frater. “We’ve grown significantly in the last two years, we want to streamline some processes and develop our staff. They are the key people to take us forward.”

The different parts of the business have different year-ends, but consolidated revenue will be around £4m next year.

Louise Ewart was hired last May as a director, with a view to grow sales. Mr Frater says having a woman on the board has made a difference.

This started with an event at Perth Airport last year, where the company invited women of all ages to try flying at half price.

“Female pilots were there to share their experience and encourage more females into flying,” he says. “The reality is that only five to ten per cent of our students are female and we want to increase that number, there is a market there for it.”

There are around 40 staff at the business now, and Mr Frater said with so many bases the company has invested in cloud computing, which helps managing the various aspects of the business much smoother.

For Mr Frater, that may just free up some more time for flying lessons.