Juergen Wiese, chairman of the European Business Aviation Association (EBAA), which co-organizes EBACE with the U.S. NBAA, believes that business aviation is “moving into a new era” in Europe. This is especially applicable at the lower end, he said, where a combination of new aircraft models, including the introduction of single-engine turboprops for commercial operations, and new internet booking engines, such as Stratajet, will lead to new customers trying business aviation for the first time.

Wiese, who is also head of BMW Flight Services, introduced journalists to new EBAA CEO Brandon Mitchener (who was appointed April 1) during a pre-EBACE briefing on May 4 at the association’s new headquarters in Brussels. “This year is the 40th anniversary of the founding of EBAA,” he said, while association president Brian Humphries added that EBACE is being held for the 17th time this year.

Mitchener summarized the latest aircraft movement figures for the European market. “It looks like the industry is taking off again,” he observed, “and we have had six months of steady growth for the first time since 2008."

EBAA also introduced a couple of industry executives. Ricardo Gato, chief marketing officer of Stratajet, said, “It is a new era for business aviation as we are making it more accessible. You can book a jet on our app now. You can price a trip in a matter of two minutes.” Gato added that 30 percent of those booking with the platform are using business aviation for the first time.

Maxime Bouchard, managing director of JetFly, said, “Yes, we are entering a new era. JetFly has been in the market for 17 years with the idea that single-engine turboprops are very interesting planes; [Daher] TBMs, [Pilatus] PC-12s etc. They will bring new service to the market, allowing [passengers] to reach more airfields.

“In Europe we have congested airfields near our main cities. It’s very hard for a business jet to find a landing slot. And we have a great treasure; many small airfields everywhere. Single-engine turboprops [SETs] can use these and offer similar or even better safety than jets.” He noted that while private owners could already fly to these places, the new EASA regulation allows the SETs to fly commercially for the first time, and they can be offered for charter if certain conditions were met.

Bouchard said the industry has been through “five hard years, and the midsize jets have been hit hardest. But now there are signs that there will be a recovery. More customers are flying again on larger planes than they have done for the last five years. So we’ve decided to go again with this midsize segment, with the [Pilatus] PC-24.” JetFly, he said, uses a fractional ownership model and has 22 aircraft and 140 owners.

Current Issues

Mitchener said that EBAA is working on a number of issues on behalf of the industry. Top priorities are access to airports and encouraging wider adoption of GPS precision approaches. He also mentioned the hoped-for cut in runway performance requirements for landing, allowing calculations to be based on 80 percent of the runway length, rather than 60 percent. “The Falcon 2000 would have 240 more European airports available,” he pointed out.

On satellite approaches, Humphries said, “We’re really excited about this, but [the industry has] been very slow to exploit it. [The technology] allows you to fly precision approaches to small airfields down to 200 feet [decision height] and 800 meters' visibility. We’re working hard with GSA [the European GNSS authority].” He noted that the GPS system (and Europe’s new Galileo equivalent) and EGNOS, the European GPS Navigation Overlay System are free to use. He also stressed that the issue of adopting GPS approaches should be “kept together” with single-engine turboprop operations, as they “are linked” by both helping to open up small airfields to viable commercial traffic. Wiese noted that many authorities were “very slow with approvals.”This was certainly the experience in Germany, he said.

EBACE 2017

Humphries said that this year’s show would have around 400 exhibitors and “about the same floor space.” The aircraft static display area, directly adjacent to the Palexpo exhibit halls at Geneva International Airport, was “pretty much sold out with 52 aircraft” [as of May 4], he added. “We expect attendees to be around 13,000. In 2001, we started with 3,600, and half of Hall 7.” There will be a new 90-second bus service to the static display, along with VIP cars, for those who don’t want to walk. There are fewer small exhibitors this year, “mostly because of the cost of Geneva itself,” said Humphries. But there are more hotels being built in the city, he noted.

Demonstrating Value: “Business Sense” Tool

A major theme for EBAA now is to better portray the value of business aviation both to lawmakers and company decision-makers. To this end it is creating a new online evaluation tool called “Business Sense” that will allow users to assess the costs and benefits of using business aviation, comparing it to other options such as commercial airlines.

Wiese said the tool would be similar in concept to the Travel Sense tool provided by NBAA a few years ago for the U.S. market.

The association illustrates examples of where business aviation can save time and money, while encouraging corporations to consider the real value of executives’ time. Humphries suggested that if an CEO’s remuneration package costs the company €10,000 a day then, if they were doing their job properly, their value should be €40,000 a day. Adding in other executives and the cumulative time saved, especially when able to get much closer to a factory or plant than commercial airlines could do, the cost-to-benefit equation could quickly look favorable, even before considering comfort, ability to work on board and better work-to-home life balance.

Wiese noted, “We don’t use the number of people on a flight as a [measure of value]. It’s the business created—setting up a new factory or doing a new business deal.” Humphries added that the size of the aircraft (he was speaking from his personal experience having once overseen Shell’s flight department) was based on the distance, and the amount of fuel burned, rather than the cabin size and number of seats.

EBAA CEO Brandon Michener said, “Business aviation is about a value proposition, allowing users to realize huge time savings.” He presented a case study where Nestlé executives going to South America could complete the trip in 32 hours with four stops over two days, or take airlines (and road transport) with a total time of 53 hours traveling and 11 stops. “So business aviation is an amazing time saver and also provides 400,000 highly skilled jobs.”