18 Nov 2013

Ocean Sky - The Private Jet Company

With this 101st post I will reach 100 000 pageviews since my blog inauguration! Hopefully it will take less than 2 years to reach another 100 000.
Ocean Sky Bombardier Challenger 604
In Quantum of Solace, the CIA is meeting with Dominic Greene in Haiti to make a deal with the Quantum organisation. The section chief, Gregory Beam together with Felix Leiter are discussing the deal during a flight from the Aerogare in Haiti to Bregenz in Austria. The CIA have chartered a plane from the private jet company Ocean Sky. Greene is assured that the CIA will do nothing to stop General Medrano's coup in Bolivia and in exchange they get the lease to any oil found in the country.

On board the jet is a small fridge visible, containing Heineken beer and Bollinger Grande Année champagne. A Sony TV is also visible, all brands are part of the sponsorship deals for the film. The tail number is G-OCSC and the plane in full Ocean Sky livery is a Bombardier Challenger 604.

Ocean Sky was formed in 2003, originally as an aviation broker, but the company changed their business model to a private jet company in 2005. At this time they bought a fleet of new aircraft but also managed privately owned jets on behalf of other owners. In 2012 Ocean Sky were the subject of insolvency proceedings and on 3 September that year, their operating licence was suspended by the Civil Aviation Authority. Today Ocean Sky is a group that consists of a number of UK and international limited companies with offices in London, Geneva, Moscow and New York involved in e.g. agriculture, aviation and real estate. Weather they still have a private jet service is unclear, but it is not likely that they have their own fleet of aircraft anymore

Beam and Leiter leave Bregenz.
The product placement by Ocean Sky was one of the bigger sponsorship deals in the film. The company lent five of its business jets to the film production. The planes, valued at £100 million each and with the standard rate of £5000 per hour, were used to fly the cast and crew to Panama. How much the product placement did amount to is unknown however.

For some reason an Ocean Sky jet with Black livery is pictured at the Bregenz Airport
instead of the one that Greene, Beam and Leiter arrive on. Not a clue why...
                   "Ocean Sky, guten abend!"

Greene leaves on a Gulfstream after the shootout at the opera.
After attending Puccini's Tosca at the Bregenz opera, Greene leaves on another private plane, this time a Gulfstream. Since Ocean Sky did not have a Gulfstream in its fleet, this is evidently another jet company or Greene's own jet. Bond is trying to follow Greene by chartering a jet from Ocean Sky, but M has cancelled his card so it is denied at the Ocean Sky desk. Instead Bond goes to see Mathis in Italy. How Bond could travel to Italy, buy a Tom Ford cardigan for a few thousand dollars and charter a boat to Talamone without a single credit card is beyond me. But then again, the plot in Quantum of Solace has more holes than the Titanic so it is probably better not to go down that road...


                              "Could you do me a favour, you're gonna get a phone call in a minute, would you                                    mind telling them I'm headed for Cairo?" 


In return for providing the planes, the Ocean Sky jets featured prominently in the film, including an Ocean Sky service desk at Bregenz airport. The logotype has several minutes of screen time. 

1 comment:

  1. Bregenz airport as featured in the movie is actually Farnborough Airport in Hampshire. The Gulfstream V (HB-IMJ) wasn't part of Ocean Sky's fleet. It belonged to G5 Executive in Switzerland, and was chartered in especially for the film shoot.

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