From green executive airliners to legacy turboprops, completion and refurbishment activity is strong and demand is ascending, according to a spectrum of industry bellwethers. They report customers’ top priorities today are for personalization and technology, and new platforms, connectivity systems, and customization tools provide as much accommodation as customers can afford—pending certifications, of course.
A review of current developments and projects showcases some of the expanding capabilities and choices, and how they’re being deployed in cabins and interiors.
Perhaps it is time to reinvent private air charter, regardless of whether it can still fulfill its “anywhere, anytime” promise. How many travelers really need last-minute travel, anyway, and what expectation should they have that the system can or will meet that need?
The market is providing some answers via offerings that are variously known as per-seat charter, flight sharing, seat sharing, semi-private, and private airline charter. These offerings, many of which fall under the umbrella of DOT Part 380 regulations, provide access at a cost that truly does rival—and in some cases undercuts—first-class airline fares.
Per-seat, on-demand very light jet (VLJ) air-taxi firm DayJet on November 14 filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy (liquidation), just four days after company founder Ed Iacobucci expressed doubt at a VLJ air-taxi conference that the Boca Raton, Florida-based charter operator would be resurrected.
The company ceased operations on September 19 and its fleet of 28 Eclipse 500s was subsequently repossessed by Eclipse Aviation and United Technologies Finance, a sister company to Eclipse engine supplier Pratt & Whitney Canada. DayJet leaves behind a 60-page list of creditors, most of them customers who used the per-seat, on-demand service.
On a rare occasion, Democrats and Republicans found common ground on an issue. That issue, something pilots in the U.S. have agreed upon for years, is that the current notam (notice to air missions) system stinks.
In late May, Congress gave final approval for the Notam Improvement Act of 2023.
The path to replacing fossil-fuel flights with net-zero electric aviation has to start somewhere, and in Norway that somewhere could be the country’s 93rd largest-city Førde on the rugged country’s North Sea coast. A new report from the independent Institute for Transport Economics has proposed the launch of a ground-breaking, subsidized public service obligation route using electric aircraft to connect the town’s 13,000 population with Norway’s second-largest city Bergen as the first, or one of the first legs, in a network of such routes that could begin operations from around 2028 or 2029.
As part of its alignment with the declared net-zero commitment of the European Union, Norway said aviation must contribute to an overall 55 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector by 2030.
The FAA recently completed a six-day multiregional demonstration of trajectory-based operations (TBO) in a move the agency said could pave the way for collaborative data-sharing among countries to improve the efficiency and safety of flights.
Calling the demonstration a first-of-its-kind joint effort to manage flights, the FAA said the TBO approach—which enables affected regions to predict where an aircraft will be and at what time—proved successful. The trial involved four unique scenarios and flights this month between the U.S., Japan, Singapore, and Thailand.
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