Jet Aviation (based in Switzerland) has opened a facility at Moscow’s Vnukovo International Airport to provide maintenance, repair, and AOG support. Vnukovo handles about 70% of Russia’s business aircraft traffic, according to AVWeb (free registration required).

Bombardier is targeting new markets in Russia, China, South Africa, and Brazil, and recently held a launch ceremony for the Challenger 605 business jet in Mumbai, India.

An article in the Hindustan Times featured a quote from Nilesh Pattanayak (Bombardier’s South Asia managing director):

“India is an important market for us and we expect many orders from the billion dollar club.”

The Corporate Angel Network matches critically ill patients in need of transport with corporate jets. Ken Belson reports on this network and other similar types of charitable services in a recent New York Times article. The network carries about 2,500 passengers a year on planes run by companies such as Verizon, PepsiCo, and Kellogg. Only cancer patients, bone marrow donors, and bone marrow recipients are eligible (there are a few other restrictions as well), but there are currently more requests than available aircraft seats.

According to Corporate Angel Network’s web site:

“Thanks to the generous cooperation of 500 of America’s top corporations, including 56 of the top 100 in the Fortune 500, Corporate Angel Network has coordinated more than 25,000 flights since it’s founding in 1981.”

If you are interested in registering your corporate aircraft in the program, you can do so here.

Executive charter companies in the Middle East are adding new equipment, new markets, and related business opportunities such as FBOs and maintenance services. An article at AINonline by Charles Alcock provides details about two companies who operate in this lucrative market, including Bexair:

“…each of the aircraft currently operated averages up to 1,200 flight hours per year in the fast-growing Arabian Gulf market for business and private charter. The growth in Bexair’s charter business has been driven entirely by demand by private individuals and local and international businesses. The company does not do any flying for the region’s wealthy royal families, and Alam [Bexair chief of marketing and strategy, Faisal Alam] said this is entirely consistent with how the Middle East charter market is diversifying in terms of customer base.”

According to AVWeb, an investigation into the collapse of a Bombardier Global 5000 aircraft’s landing gear is underway. No one was seriously hurt, but the aircraft’s owner, Ron Joyce (co-founder of Tim Horton’s, a popular Canadian donut shop) is not sure the new $35 million jet can be repaired. The aircraft was attempting to land at a Nova Scotia golf resort’s private airstrip when the accident occurred.

This news clip from Air Transport World’s ATWOnline site is a telling tale of woe for the dollar’s decline in Europe. Pretty candid comments from the normally optimistic bunch in Toulouse….

http://www.atwonline.com/news/story.html?storyID=10938

Tuesday November 27, 2007Airbus’s Power8 restructuring program as originally conceived no longer is sufficient owing to the US dollar’s decline and the manufacturer now needs to take significant measures to rescue itself from a “life-threatening” situation, CEO Tom Enders and parent EADS CEO Louis Gallois said in a series of recent public comments.

Gallois told Germany’s Die Welt that Airbus needs to achieve an additional €1.5 billion ($2.2 billion) in annual savings on top of the €2.1 billion per year it planned to save from 2010 and the cumulative €5 billion it plans to cut by 2010 (ATW, August 2007). “Power8 is meant to defend our competitiveness on the basis of a euro rate of $1.35,” he said. But with the euro now worth $1.48 and possibly rising further, “simple arithmetic” adds up to another €1.5 billion in needed annual savings, Gallois said. He has said repeatedly that Airbus loses €1 billion in profit for every 10-cent decline in the value of the dollar against the euro.

During a speech last week to German labor unions, Enders said that “the dollar’s rapid decline is life-threatening for Airbus.” Gallois asserted that Airbus and other European manufacturers may have to move more production outside Europe. “This is endangering the European high-tech industry,” he told Die Welt.

Enders said that despite the large number of aircraft orders received this year, Airbus likely will report “enormous losses” for the full year. EADS posted a €705 million nine-month loss (ATWOnline, Nov. 13). Enders said Power8 will have to be revised, with the company conducting a full reevaluation of its industrial processes in coming weeks. “There will be no more taboos,” he said. “We need to question our business model. It is no longer sustainable.”

by Aaron Karp

According to AME Info, Abu Dhabi-based Royal Jet is planning a major expansion to take place over the next 5 years. The expansion is “aimed at achieving turnover of $500m by 2012″ and increasing the size of the fleet to more than 20 airplanes. Royal Jet already operates the world’s largest Boeing Business Jet fleet.

The article also includes information on an industry report commissioned by Royal Jet. For the Middle Eastern region, the report indicates a compound annual growth rate of aircraft movement and fleet size of 40%, and a 23% annual growth rate for the charter market. The report goes on to detail:

“…the double-digit CAGR in regional aircraft movements are Abu Dhabi at 46% and Dubai at 38% recorded between 2003 and 2007; Jeddah at 18%, Riyadh with 12% and Damman with 10% in the three-year period 2004-2006; Amman with 37% from 2000 to 2005; Bahrain at 25% from 2002-2004; and Sharm-El-Sheikh at 11% from 2002-2005.”

“The region’s charter fleet is broken down by aircraft size into 40% devoted to the light and mid-sized range; 29% for the super mid-size, heavy and regional range; 27% to VIP airlines and 4% to ultra, long-range airliners.”

Figures recently released from the General Aviation Manufacturer’s Association show a 20% increase in the number of business jets sold through the end of the third quarter. 759 aircraft have been sold, compared with 628 through the third quarter of 2006.

Aviation Week reports that many of the latest cockpit innovations found in commercial aircraft started out as features of the Boeing Business Jet.

“Taylor notes that head-up guidance systems made their first entry at Boeing on the BBJ and then moved to the commercial aircraft production line…
However, avionics is not the only area where technical innovation started in the BBJ program and was then incorporated on commercial transports. Winglets, a key fuel-saving device, is an example. “In a sense, we are a Skunk Works for commercial airplanes,” says Taylor.”

An article in the New York Times by Nicola Clark talks about Prince Walid bin Talal’s purchase of the A380, which costs $300 million and has 6,460 square feet of available space. The sale was officially announced at the Dubai AirShow after months of speculation. Talal, of Saudi Arabia, is one of the world’s richest men, and is currently the only private owner of a Boeing 747-400.