Molly McMillin is managing editor of business aviation for Aviation Week and editor-in-chief of the Business Aviation & AAM Report, an Aviation Week market intelligence report.
Before joining Aviation Week, Molly spent nearly 20 years at the Wichita Eagle, Kansas’ largest newspaper, where she served as senior aviation/aerospace reporter.
Molly became a private pilot in 2011, learning to fly in her dad's 1956 Piper Tri-Pacer.
She has won multiple state and national journalism awards, including awards from the Society of Business Editors and Writers, Heart of America and the Kansas Press Association. She was the recipient of the 2023 and the 2013 National Business Aviation Association’s Gold Wing Award for Journalism Excellence and was featured in a book on Kansas called Ad Astra: 161 Adventurers, Astronauts, Discoverers, Explorers, Pilots, Pioneers and Scientists.
A graduate of Wichita State University, Molly was selected the 2014 Outstanding Alumni at WSU’s Elliott School of Communication.
The General Aviation Manufacturers Association says new aircraft deliveries for the first three quarters of 2016 were down 3.5% from the same period in the previous year, with 1,504 units shipped compared to 1,558 units in 2015. Helicopter shipments were even worse—down 16% to 615 units compared to 732 units in the same period in 2015. Combined airplane and rotorcraft billings were $15.9 billion year-to-date in 2016 compared to last year's $19.1 billion, a contraction of 16.5%.
Wheels Up, the membership-based aviation company, is now offering flights to and from Havana on its fleet of King Air 350i turboprops and Citation Excel/XLS turbofans. It has also launched an on-the-ground booking assistance program in Cuba for its 3,500+ members, and provides trips through any of the 18 U.S. airports approved by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Quest Aircraft has signed a major fleet order with a sister subsidiary in Japan for up to 20 Kodiak aircraft. The 10-seat aircraft single-engine turboprop will be used for a new membership-based private travel service that was launched in November. The order is Quest’s largest commercial fleet order to date. “We are very excited to have completed such a large order for the Kodiak,” said Nick Newby, Quest senior vice president of sales, marketing and customer service.
