Gregory Polek has spent his entire career in aviation journalism with AIN, starting as a proofreader and assistant to then-managing editor Mary Mahoney in 1995 after serving an internship with&nbsp;New Jersey Monthly&nbsp;magazine and completing his B.A. degree in English/Writing at New Jersey’s William Paterson College. By 1997 Polek accepted a position as an associate editor, covering the regional airline beat for&nbsp;Aviation International News&nbsp;in place of retiring industry veteran Don Anderson. The assignment took Polek across North America and Europe to profile regional airlines varying in size and mission from the likes of floatplane operators Kenmore Air and Chalk’s Ocean Airways to regional jet operators such as SkyWest and American Eagle. Today, in his dual role as Air Transport Editor and International Airshow Editor, Polek writes, edits, and manages AIN’s commercial aviation content while overseeing each of the company’s daily international air show publications in Paris, Farnborough, Singapore, and Dubai. Most recently Polek has assumed oversight of daily coverage of the Helicopter Association International’s annual Heli-Expo convention.

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Gregory Polek

BAE Systems has announced a plan to implement a new “regionalized” strategy to support the Latin American market, where some 90 of its aircraft are now in service with nearly 40 operators. The company unveiled the new support strategy at its first ever Americas operators’ conference, held in Lima, Peru, May 23 and 24. Coincidentally, the conference took place on the 14th anniversary of the founding of StarPeru, which now flies nine BAe 146 regional jetliners.
As recently as 2005 only “a handful” of BAE Systems customers populated Latin America, noted the company. In six years its presence has spread throughout the continent and across its regional product line.
“We are placing growing numbers of our portfolio aircraft into Latin American countries, and third parties are also finding the continent a receptive market for our products,” said Sean McGovern, business director for support for BAE Systems Regional Aircraft, who chaired the conference. “With such a head of steam building, we have applied additional focus on developing support solutions that are designed to provide a more responsive service to Latin American operators.
“We are looking to work with internationally recognized freighting expertise to shorten the lines of communication, hold stock in-country where appropriate and to access repair and overhaul facilities in the Americas for rotable components, thus ensuring that turn times and associated freighting costs are minimized,” he added.
This first conference drew more than 40 delegates from Latin and North American operators, as well as representatives from major support service providers and training providers.
BAE Systems traditionally holds an annual operator’s conference in the UK, reflecting a strong European customer base. But as it places growing numbers of aircraft farther afield, BAE Systems has decided to highlight its geographic diversity by holding its first Asian Operators Conference in Jakarta, Indonesia, early last year and a similar conference in Johannesburg in November.

BAE Spreads Its Wings In Latin America

BAE Systems has announced a plan to implement a new “regionalized” strategy to support the Latin American market, where some 90 of its aircraft are now in 

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