Comlux (Booth 5152) and Universal Aviation (Booth 6534) have a new agreement for ground handling and FBO services at 14 airports, primarily in Europe and Asia. “Comlux appreciates that by leveraging our global community they can be certain that our Universal teams on every continent will partner with them to ensure the highest levels of ground support and be able to manage even the most challenging and customized requests,” said Universal Weather and Aviation senior international VP Jonathan Howells.
Flight connectivity specialist Aircell is here in Geneva with two ready-made and cost-effective answers to forthcoming cockpit data link mandates. First deliveries are due next month.
Having become a single-source provider of SwiftBroadband in-flight connectivity, Aircell offers new customers a fly-before-buy evaluation of its latest service. Onboard equipment, airtime and highly rated product support are all included in the package.
Having become a single-source provider of SwiftBroadband in-flight connectivity, Aircell offers new customers a fly-before-buy evaluation of its latest service. Onboard equipment, airtime and highly rated product support are all included in the package.
EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg-based FBO and VIP handling provider Air Service Basel (Booth 1212) has partnered with Avfuel Corporation (Booth 4634) to offer its branded aviation fuels and pilot programs, and to take advantage of Avfuel's operational and training systems.
A futuristic interior for a VIP helicopter is being unveiled here this week by AgustaWestland. A mockup of the design for the AW169, by fashion studio Lanzavecchia+Wai, can be seen on Booth 6629. After working with the most famous and prestigious fashion houses, such as Versace and Lagerfeld, on the GrandNew and AW139 helicopters, AgustaWestland decided to do something different and avant garde for the AW169, which is to be certified this year.
Comlux the Aviation Group (Booth 5152) comes to EBACE with a maintenance and refurbishment contract for a BBJ based in Asia. The airplane is expected to arrive at the company’s Comlux America facility in Indianapolis, Indiana in the second quarter 2014 and will spent four months at the center. The unidentified owner is being represented by the aircraft management company Sino Jet, led by CEO Jenny Lau.
The exterior paint shop at L-3 Platform Integration has had considerable experience applying unique and beautiful finishes on large VIP jets, but the new 747-8 is a challenge that would have taxed the talents of Michelangelo. As an artist’s canvas goes, it is big. Really, really big; with a wing span of 59.6 meters (195 ft, 8 in) and 70.6 meters in length (231 ft, 10 in).
George Washington readily owned up to a small-scale exercise in deforestation, but how likely is it that he would have confessed to an experiment in ‘cherry tree cancelation’? Believe no longer that debates about the number of angels able to dance on a pinhead represent the world’s most excruciatingly obtuse argument. Would even Albert Einstein be smart enough to fathom when a business jet order is not a business jet order?
* Illegal flights . The EBAA has led two studies into so called illegal flights in Europe. Work is ongoing but the figure of about 7% of illegal flights is roughly correct. “The very important thing to keep in mind, is that very few are deliberately illegal,” says association president Brian Humphries.
Popularly supposed to be impossible because of data overload issues, a lifesaving and money-saving “black box” telemetry device is here, right now, and available to business aircraft operators. MH370 and, before that, AF447: flight numbers that have entered public consciousness. If only there were technology that could track every flight everywhere in the world, collecting and downloading to the ground in real time everything that went into its black box recorder. Impossible; forget about it.
Greenpoint Technologies is introducing its new Azure interior design for the 787 BBJ here at EBACE, a creation the company says reflects “the freedom of artistry, engineering and innovation. It is, according to lead designer Julie Myers, a collection of materials and forms within a naturalist’s passion for discover and exploration, and inspiration from both land and sea with an essence of organic forms.
Dubai-based Hadid International Services (Booth 6515) is paying increasing attention to the needs of business travelers in Africa, noting that it supported more than 6,000 flights in Africa in 2013 and has seen a 30% increase in the first quarter of this year.
Bell Helicopter has delivered a Bell 429 to Swiss operator Heli-Alps, which provides corporate transport, heli-skiing, sightseeing tours, aerial photography and other utility operations. It is the first VIP-configured Bell 429 to enter service in Switzerland, and was customized at the Bell Helicopter facility in Prague.
Are you sitting comfortably? You will be if you visit the Iacobucci HF Aerospace Booth 3623, where the Ferentino, Italy–based company is launching its new double- and single-shell seats for large VIP aircraft. Named Roma and Milano, respectively, both are fully electromechanically operated, with a wide range of movements managed by the actuator software. Configurations available at the touch of an armrest-mounted button go from full upright to full horizontal flat-bed position.
“We’ve brought the Biggin Hill JETS operation to stability,” says 328 Group CEO Dave Jackson. “The FBO has been divested to Signature Flight Support so that we can concentrate on MRO work,” he says. “We’ve seen an increase in traffic and 30%-plus of business is coming from new customers. We believe that the aircraft types covered at Biggin Hill complement our capabilities at our JETS Bournemouth operation.”
L-3 Platform Integration’s VIP and Head-of-State Completion Center has defined the five top “must-haves” that customers request on new VVIP completions: 1. Broadband Internet. “More than ever,” says L-3, “customers want high bandwidth throughout the aircraft.”
L-3’s Platform Integration unit reports a four-year extension of Organization Designation Authorization from the U.S. FAA, noting too that it’s been approved to modify the Boeing 787. The ODA allows L-3 to issue its own certificates of airworthiness and supplemental type certificates. The firm has made 50 VIP aircraft deliveries, of types ranging from the Boeing Business Jet to the Airbus ACJ340.
Landmark Aviation is increasing its presence in the U.K. with the acquisition of RSS Jet Center Limited. The acquisition gives Landmark three locations in the U.K. – London Luton, Manchester, and Glasgow Prestwick Airport. The newest Landmark Aviation bases expand the FBO chain’s reach in Europe to 13 locations, including ten in France.
The National Business Aviation Association and the Shanghai Airport Authority (SAA) have extended their partnership for five more years, firmly planting ABACE – the Asian Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition – at Shanghai’s Hongqiao International Airport through 2021. NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen and SAA VP Wang Jijie formally signed the extension during ABACE2014, following up on the first five-year pact signed in June 2011.
Japan is beginning to make strides in improving access for business aviation, but Masaaki Kai, senior director general for the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau (JCAB), concedes the operations are still relatively few and more needs to be accomplished. The number of business aviation arrivals and departures in Japan topped 13,000 in 2013, up by nearly 1,300 from a year earlier. At Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, business aircraft traffic jumped by 30%. Nagoya Airport, which had fewer than 80 business aircraft arrivals, is preparing for a steady rise in traffic.
With Embraer’s business jet portfolio close to completion with the upcoming certification of its midsize Legacy 500 and mid-light Legacy 450, the Brazilian manufacturer is using EBACE to showcase its renewed focus on systems upgrades and improvements to the state-of-the-art interiors across its full range.
Munich Executive Airport is open for business and all it takes is a phone call to fly there, says Johannes Graf von Shaesberg, chairman and CEO of Rheinland Air Service. The company operates the FBO and offers complete airport passenger and crew services. “The perception is that Oberpfenhoffen/Munich Executive is still restricted to based aircraft and limited to flights booked to visit businesses here,” von Shaesberg says. “This is no longer the case.”
