Aviation International News senior correspondent Ian Goold has been involved in aerospace since 1964 and in aviation media for more than 40 years. He enjoyed a 20-year career at Flight International magazine, where he was latterly air-transport editor before turning freelance in 1993. A winner of the European Regions Airline Association Hank McGonagle award for excellence in aerospace journalism and a Royal Aeronautical Society Aerospace Journalist of the Year global&nbsp;award, he has edited or contributed to aerospace and aviation magazines, special publications, and websites in Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. Ian entered aerospace as an apprentice at the British Aircraft Corporation at Brooklands (Weybridge), where he worked on production and final assembly lines of the Vickers Super VC10, and BAC One-Eleven , and manufacture of Concorde major sub-assemblies. He subsequently graduated from the BAC Design Training School to work in the airframe structures drawing office (including design of international future projects, such as the Panavia Tornado multi-role combat aircraft) before joining Flight International in 1973. Apart from years of reading aircraft magazines and books, his first direct contact with aviation media had come during the early 1970s when he was involved at Brooklands with the Weybridge Man-powered Aircraft Group, which designed and built the tenth aircraft to fly under purely human power. As an aviation journalist, he has worked at more than&nbsp; 50 of the major biennial&nbsp;global and regional international aerospace industry shows at Le Bourget, Farnborough, Singapore, and Dubai (having missed attending only one "Farnborough" since 1960), plus innumerable NBAA, HAI, (U.S.) AOPA, and EBACE Conventions and ERA Assemblies. His favourite aircraft is the Hawker Hunter, of which – as a schoolboy – he heard hundreds make their first flights from Dunsfold, where also on September 24, 2013, he saw the penultimate landing of the VC10 (happily involving an example of which he had witnessed the maiden takeoff in 1970) a day before the last example made the design's final flight (unless, of course....).

Senior correspondent

Ian Goold

The Air Partner initiative at Biggin Hill comes as the airport reports business jet movements increased by 25 percent last year and it foresees 30-percent further growth this year. Additional infrastructure development at the southeast London site may draw on the proceeds of parent company Regional Airports’ planned disposal of its interest in Southend Airport on the north bank of the Thames river estuary east of London. That sale could generate some $100 million, and, according to business development manager Robert Walters, the firm may select a preferred bidder by the end of June.
Walters told EBACE Convention News that as a result of available capacity and the lack of runway slot restrictions, Biggin Hill has been enjoying constant growth. The fleet of aircraft based there also is continuing to grow and could number almost 50 by mid-year, he said. For example, four jets–a 50-seat Bombardier CRJ200 to be operated by charter provider Markoss Aviation, two private corporate Challengers (one with UK registration, the other U.S.-registered) and a private U.S.-registered Dassault Falcon 900–were scheduled to take up residence in April. A larger CRJ900 is expected by mid-year and another is scheduled to arrive in about 15 months.
Biggin Hill is also set to receive very light jets, including “quite a few” Cessna Mustangs and at least one Embraer Phenom expected for new operators by year-end, according to Walters. By that time, the airport hopes also to have obtained formal approval for a planned hotel.
Next year should see completion of a 70,000-sq-ft hangar near the terminal on the west side of the airport, which will provide accommodation for up to 10 Gulfstream V-size aircraft. The new hangar is composed of four bays that will accommodate up to four Airbus Corporate Jet/Boeing Business Jet-size aircraft. 
A separate new ramp, increasing available aircraft parking space by some 60 percent to almost 270,000 sq ft was opened last year. The airport’s terminal building has received interior refurbishment and there is also 12,000 sq ft of office space. That $1.5 million project marked the first step in the continuing redevelopment of Biggin Hill.

Biggin Hill Growth Soars As London Slots Tighten

The Air Partner initiative at Biggin Hill comes as the airport reports business jet movements increased by 25 percent last year and it foresees 30-percent 

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