Friday Interview:Dómhnal Slattery's love affair with aviation began when he was just a nipper, working with his dad supplying fresh fruit and veg to the kitchens at Shannon airport. "I remember the smell of the kerosene distinctly and the smell of the vapour," he says. "I've always had this grá for the business."

His passion for the industry saw him spend the guts of 15 years in aircraft leasing, including time as one of Tony Ryan's lieutenants at GPA.

His latest project is JetBird, a Dublin-based, low-cost executive jet airline he hopes to launch in 2009. It could be the Ryanair of its sector.

Slowly, but surely, the pieces of the JetBird jigsaw are falling into place. Up to 100 new Phenom aircraft have been secured from Brazilian manufacturer Embraer. Dane Stefan Vilner, an experienced airline executive, has been recruited to head the business and a €45 million fundraising is well under way at Claret Capital, Slattery's private equity vehicle.

The plan is to operate executive jets between Europe's main financial centres (Dublin won't feature on the timetable although the airline with carry the Irish EI registration tag) at about half the €5,000 an hour cost of current operators, which include NetJets, the group backed by legendary financier Warren Buffet.

"We're very excited about the potential for this business," Slattery says. "It's well on track...now we just have to execute it flawlessly."

If the business model works, Slattery says a stock market flotation in 2013 is possible. "I'd be disappointed if it didn't achieve an equity value of €1 billion at the time of the IPO."

JetBird is just one of a number of portfolio investments that Slattery has on the boil. He's also nurturing Blue Ocean Wireless, a fledgling business offering low-cost mobile phone calls to workers travelling the high seas on cargo ships.

Claret Capital is also planning an assault on the real estate market in the United States.

That is to say nothing of a string of other investments by Claret, or Slattery's involvement as a founder of the Clare People, a local newspaper in his native county. He's also dipping his toes in the music business, setting up Savvi Entertainment to promote new talent.

It's a wide and diverse mix and Slattery is only too aware of the need to stay focused.

"We don't want to be known as deal junkies," he says, leaning back in the leather chair in his compact yet well-furnished home office. "We are hugely cognisant of that potential perception."

Slattery is 40 years old and one of a new breed of young buck executives in Irish business.

He worked in pirate radio and as a night-time DJ to help fund his way through University College Galway. When he graduated in 1989, he was one of just a handful in his class to remain here. On leaving college, Slattery applied to GPA and, after a couple of rejections, got his foot in the door.

It was a time before e-mail and the internet and Slattery would start at 6am each day in the mail room, sorting through faxes from 14 machines and placing them in the pigeon holes of executives.

The Clareman worked his way up the ladder at GPA. After the collapse of the group's stock market flotation, the Shannon-based company was taken over by General Electric and Slattery was posted to Miami in 1994 to head up its South America activities. In mid-1994, he set up his own aircraft leasing business, International Aviation Management Group, which, by 2001, was doing $1 billion worth of aircraft financing transactions in that year alone.

Slattery was now firmly on the radar and Royal Bank of Scotland paid about €25 million to buy the business that year. "The lesson I learned from that was that if you have an aspiration, do it early," he says. "The older you get, the more difficult it is to do and the more cautious you get."

The timing of the sale to RBS couldn't have been better. The 9/11 attacks were just four months away, after which the airline industry took a nosedive. At a time when many rivals were retrenching, RBS decided to grow its aircraft leasing business aggressively, with Slattery at the controls.

He spent three years helping to make the business the third-largest aircraft leasing company in the world. In 2004, he decided to jump off the carousel and take a sabbatical. "I think it was probably the riskiest move of my career," he recalls.

The first six months were spent "smelling the roses" but after that it became a struggle to fill the day. "By the second six months I was worried that I was going to get too used to this and mightn't be able to get back into the mainstream."

Then the opportunity to launch the Clare People came along. Slattery and Sean Lyne invested about €2 million in the project and, while it has yet to turn a profit, the tabloid has been a hit locally since its launch in 2005 with 12,000 sales a week.

He went on to form Claret Capital as a vehicle for wealthy individuals to invest their money. Senator Feargal Quinn and family are among his clients.

Like many who soldiered with Tony Ryan, Slattery speaks warmly about his former mentor. "He would be one of my heroes. He always wanted you to be the best, he demanded it of people around him and you either bought into it or you got out of the place. I've a lot to thank him for."

In addition to his impressive family home on Ailesbury Road, Slattery also owns a property in his native Ennis, where he and his family go at the beginning of June for a three-month break. He uses that time "to re-energise and to think about new ideas".

Another interest is Orbis, a New York-based charity that operates a flying hospital to cure blindness in the Third World and in which he is heavily involved. "There are 125 million people in the world who are visually impaired and 90 per cent of them don't need to be. The work that Orbis is doing is very important and it's an important part of my pysche," he says.

In just a few years, Slattery has built Claret Capital to a stage where it has equity investments of €350 million. He'd like to treble that figure by 2010. By then, it might be time for another sabbatical. "Every seven to eight years I'd like to take six to 12 months away from the day-to-day business world," he says. "Just to take a step back."

ON THE RECORD

Name:Dómhnal Slattery.

Age:40.

Family:Married to Elaine with four daughters.

Lives:Has homes in Dublin and Ennis.

Position:Founder and managing partner of Claret Capital.

Something you might expect:He is a member of Doonbeg golf club in Co Clare.

Something that might surprise:He plans to record an album later this year of his top 10 favourite tunes with a group he manages called Travega.

Hobbies:Has a passion for rugby and music and collects wine, art and watches.