Lufthansa has placed firm orders for seven executive jets from Cessna, the US business aircraft maker, in its first step towards building its own fleet of exclusive corporate jets.

The German flag carrier is set to be the first European airline to develop its own fleet of business jets to augment the scheduled services offered to its most lucrative premium customers.

Thierry Antinori, executive vice president marketing and sales in the Lufthansa passenger airline division, said the airline was aiming to have a fleet of nine corporate jets operating in the region of Europe and Russia within 12 months.

Private aviation has enjoyed an unprecedented global boom during the last three years, as corporate executives and rich individual customers have sought both to avoid the increasing hassle, inconvenience and delays of flying through congested hub airports and to use business jets to increase executive productivity.

Several other European airlines have considered entering the corporate jet market, including KLM, the Dutch subsidiary of Air France-KLM, which has recently investigated the fledgling market for air taxi jet operations with four-seat very light jets.

KLM has shelved the project, however, and to date only Lufthansa is pressing ahead with the development of its own fleet.

Cessna has a two to three year waiting list for most of its jets. To secure early deliveries Lufthansa has been forced to buy production slots from other Cessna customers in the secondary market.

The Lufthansa Private Jet service will offer a network of around 1,000 airports in Europe and will be available both for point-to-point services and to connect premium passengers to the group's long-haul network via its hubs at Frankfurt, Munich and Zurich.

Around 70 per cent of the demand is expected to be for ad hoc charter service for point-to-point flying avoiding the airline's main airports.

The private jet users connecting to long-haul flights will have access to the airline's exclusive first class terminals at the hub airports and will also be able to earn frequent flier miles.

The group has tested the market for executive jet services for the last two years in a co-operation deal with NetJets Europe, the leading operator of business jets in Europe, but the arrangement was terminated late last year as a result of disagreements over pricing and aircraft availability.

Mr Antinori said Lufthansa was aiming to offer four different categories of light, midsize and large business jets ranging from four to 12 seats.

The fleet of seven jets from Cessna would comprise three four-seat Cessna Citation CJ1+ aircraft, two six-seat Citation CJ3s and two seven-seat Citation XLS jets. In addition Lufthansa is planning to convert two of its Bombardier CRJ200 regional jets into 12-seat corporate jets.

Lufthansa Private Jet will be operated under a separate air operators certificate by Swiss International Air Lines, the German group's Swiss subsidiary.

Lufthansa plans to continue its existing co-operation with Germany's DC Aviation, one of Europe's leading business jet operators, to provide extra capacity to meet peaks in demand.