With two days of training and two days of conference/exhibition at Cannes Airport in the south of France earlier this week, AirOps Europe took another step to becoming the schedulers and dispatchers event for Europe. Brandon Mitchener, CEO of event organizer European Business Aviation Association (EBAA), said it represents “Europe’s premier event for flight operations professionals” with more than 40 exhibitors and “almost double the participants [of last year]—up to 350 now.”

He said that it came at a time when Europe’s business aviation traffic was showing robust growth “after 10 years in a holding pattern,” a statement underlined later on in a session on “The State of the Industry” by Belarmino Paradela, EBAA’s economics and operational activities senior manager, and Richard Koe, founder and CEO of WingX.

Mitchener told AIN that expanding AirOps Europe represents part of EBAA’s new strategic plan, which sets six top priorities: access to airspace and airports; fair and proportionate regulation; increased membership value; sustainability; communications, especially focused on the image of business aviation in Europe; and bolstering the organization itself. To that end, EBAA announced the appointment of a new COO, Robert Baltus, alongside a new communications director, Eric Drosin, earlier this month. In the past five years EBAA's staff has doubled to around 20, based in Brussels, while it is now seeking a financial controller and is reviewing membership tiers “to see if we can provide better value for the price, especially for smaller operators,” said Mitchener

He agreed there was a need to do “something similar” to the U.S. NBAA’s “No Plane, No Gain” initiative to help spread better understanding of business aviation in Europe. “Most people don’t know it exists, and we want to raise awareness of what it does; it’s not just about the rich on their weekend retreats. The association started with corporate flight departments and still consists of 44 corporate operators and 98 commercial operators of a total number of approximately 150 operators.”

EBAA is planning to “do a lot of training of members in communications,” said Mitchener, “to ensure we get consistent messaging throughout the industry.”

At its board meeting in early September EBAA also decided to broaden its definition of “business aviation” to encompass emerging areas such as autonomous air-taxi vehicles, which Mitchener noted could eventually replace helicopters in some applications. “We also wanted to reassure ourselves that business aviation is not about the size of the aircraft, it’s about using aircraft for business.” One area where smaller aircraft is of concern to the association is the unregulated, yet effectively commercial, area of flight sharing under EASA rules, something the U.S. FAA has outlawed.

State of the Industry

Opening a session on the state of the industry, new EBAA COO Robert Baltus said the economic situation in Europe had been “depressing for the past eight years.” He then introduced Arthur Thomas, EBAA manager of statistics and economic affairs, who said that, after being stagnant for years, traffic had picked up last year and for the January-through-August period. “The last time we saw traffic growing for 10 months in a row was 2010, when it wasn’t difficult to do, coming just after the crisis,” Thomas noted. “And 2017 has showed the best start to a year since 2008” in countries such as France and Germany. In addition, many of Europe’s top 30 business aviation airports have seen their best year for many years."

WingX's Koe said he had observed 3 percent growth this year, with “20,000 additional flights” in 2017 as traffic has continued to recover. “It’s the first time in a decade we’ve seen this volume of flights.” But average hours flown per aircraft “are not back,” Koe said. “Utilization is down 3 percent.” Some aircraft, such as the Phenom 300, are seeing “remarkable sustained growth.” On-demand charter is driving the growth overall, up more than 10 percent in Europe in the first half of this year alone.

However, Koe questioned how sustainable the recovery is, noting that “luxury spending,” especially on flights to resorts around the Mediterranean, dominates. “People want to experience their wealth rather than just spending it on assets,” he said, adding that there is “a new generation where access is the new form of ownership, without the hassles of ownership.” Charter is also being stimulated by new business models and electronic smartphone apps, as well as by a capacity glut. Average charter prices have fallen 2 percent since 2014, said Koe.

With consolidation among operators continuing in Europe, the 21 percent of operators that have six or more aircraft account for 43 percent of activity. He predicted this continuing trend would drive greater efficiencies and reduced prices, which would in turn “drive further growth.”

On the downside, manufacturers are still struggling to sell new aircraft. “OEMs are getting a wake-up call,” said Koe. “Deliveries are 60 percent down compared to 2008. And the sharing economy is due to see massive growth.” But he concluded that “the one clear winner from the growth in activity is the aftermarket," citing Textron Aviation as an example, noting that the aftermarket accounts for 30 percent of the company's revenue. He said customer support is a major focus as OEMs position themselves for when companies start to replace aircraft again. 

Connected World of Aviation

On the first day of AirOps Europe, Vienna, Austria-based FL3XX and several other initial members hosted the "Connected World of Aviation." The companies had a joint exhibition area in one corner of Hangar 16 at Cannes Mandelieu Airport, where the EBAA event was held. The new grouping of technology companies envision a future in which those using business aircraft will be able to use one interface to manage the entire process, including worldwide pricing and quoting, flight planning, catering, ground handling, chauffeur services and so on.