AINalerts will not be published tomorrow (April 2) in observance of the Easter and Passover holidays.

Two Facilities Share Top Honors in 2021 AIN FBO Survey

American Aero FTW at Fort Worth Meacham International Airport repeated its first-place finish in the annual AIN FBO Survey covering facilities in the Americas (North, Central, and South America, and the Caribbean), results of which were released this morning. The Dallas-area FBO was joined in the top spot by Pentastar Aviation at Detroit-area Oakland County International Airport, which American Aero narrowly edged out last year. Both locations this year earned a score of 4.76 out of a possible 5 from AIN readers.

Also finishing in the top 5 percent were Sheltair Tampa; Henriksen Jet Center (Austin Executive Airport in Texas); Jet Aviation West Palm Beach; Wilson Air Center (Memphis International Airport); Base Operations (Page Field, Fort Myers, Florida); Henriksen Jet Center (Houston Executive Airport); Global Select (Houston Sugar Land Regional Airport); Western Aircraft (Boise Air Terminal/Gowen Field, Idaho); Banyan Air Service (Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport); Heritage Aviation (Burlington International Airport, Vermont); Sheltair Fort Lauderdale; and Stuart Jet Center at Florida’s Witham Field.

The FBOs were scored in five categories: line service, passenger amenities, pilot amenities, facilities, and CSRs. Survey results from the rest of the world will be announced on May 1, when the AIN FBO Survey window will reopen for next year's edition.

Business Aviation Ops Continue Rebound in March

Business aviation activity, led by branded charter, marked a 30 percent improvement last month from a year ago but still remains down 8 percent overall from March 2019. Last month’s rebound is reflective of economies opening up, compared with a year ago when lockdown policies were spreading globally, WingX noted in its latest Global Market Tracker report.

North America accounted for 80 percent of the global business jet and turboprop activity, with 285,000 flights in March. This is up 31 percent from a year ago but down 8 percent from March 2019. The U.S. specifically is recovering faster, with activity up 36 percent from a year ago and within 10 percent of what WingX called the March 2019 “normality.”

In a positive industry sign, management companies experienced a 40 percent year-over-year industry jump, but WingX said branded charter is the underlying strength of the industry. That sector was up 10 percent from March 2019 and 2 percent when comparing year-to-date totals from this year and 2019.

In Europe, business aviation activity increased 19 percent year-over-year in March but remains 20 percent behind March 2019. However, WingX said the rolling average daily activity has recovered to its highest level since October. Italy has seen almost a threefold increase in flights from March 2020, for example.

Biden Infrastructure Proposal To Boost Manufacturing

The White House’s sweeping $2 trillion American Jobs Plan proposal, unveiled yesterday, would pump $25 billion more into airports and encompasses numerous other general provisions aimed at boosting infrastructure, manufacturing, supply chain, and green initiatives such as carbon capture and biofuel.

For airports specifically, the proposal would seek another $25 billion in funding, including for Airport Improvement Program projects, and would seek a program to support terminal renovations and multimodal connections. That funding comes in addition to the $20 billion already allocated to airports over the past year in the various Covid-19 relief bills.

A major focus of the proposal is building the manufacturing base and research and development. Noting that the U.S. is “one of the few major economies whose public investments in research and development have declined as a percent of GDP in the past 25 years,” the proposal seeks $180 billion in various investments in areas ranging from artificial intelligence to biotechnology. The proposal specifically seeks $15 billion for climate research and development demonstration projects, including carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, biofuel/bioproducts, and electric vehicles.

In addition, the proposal would set aside $52 billion to increase manufacturer access to capital and also would support small business incubators and supply chain, among other related measures. The plan would also set the corporate tax rate at 28 percent.

Aviation Leaders Call for ATC Infrastructure Boost

As President Joe Biden rolled out his $2 trillion American Jobs Plan infrastructure proposal that includes $25 billion for airports, aviation community leaders also appealed for increased investments in the broader aviation infrastructure that they say is aging and in urgent need of upgrade.

Speaking during yesterday’s U.S. Chamber of Commerce Aviation Summit, FAA deputy administrator Bradley Mims said, “The time to act is now because the aviation infrastructure is showing its age.” He noted the FAA has a backlog of nearly $5 billion in upgrade and modernization programs for its facilities and systems, and “a great many of those need it now.” Overall, Mims further stated, the FAA has about $3 billion in unfunded infrastructure requirements through 2030. “When we talk about infrastructure and sustainment investment in the country as a whole, it is very important that we do not forget about the airspace system and its backbone,” he said.

Alan Pellegrini, CEO of Thales North America, during the summit announced the establishment of a Ground-Based Aviation Infrastructure Coalition founded by Thales and a half-dozen aviation infrastructure equipment providers. He cited estimates that capital investments in new infrastructure have declined 30 percent. “This issue can no longer be put off. We must modernize with the target that the average age of our ground-based infrastructure is reduced to less than its design lifetime by 2030.”

New AirborneX Platform Offers Helicopters for Lease

Air mobility group Ascent is launching AirborneX as an online platform where helicopter owners can offer their aircraft to other operators under dry leases (without flight crew). According to the Singapore-based group, the service provides a way to increase aircraft utilization and revenues in the face of market disruption caused by the Covid crisis.

“Some operators are flying more than ever now, but others are not flying at all, so we’ve set up a system to make it easier to lease aircraft; it’s like Airbnb for helicopters,” explained Ascend CEO and founder Lionel Sinai-Sinelnikov. Ascend vets companies and individuals listing aircraft to verify that they are the legal owners, but any lease arrangements are conducted under the liability of the lessor and the lessee.

The platform has just launched in beta format with a limited number of listings. Ascend aims to take listings from helicopter owners worldwide and to prioritize expansion in the U.S. market. Eventually, it may seek to add fixed-wing aircraft.

According to Sinai-Sinelnikov, there are significant geographical fluctuations in demand, and he believes that AirborneX will give both aircraft owners and prospective lessees greater visibility on options. For instance, he said that an Airbus H125 based in the Australian state of Queensland is currently likely to be flying around three times as much as the same model based in Victoria.

Flight Pro Emerges from Ashes of Air Routing Intl

Tom Balousek, one of the three co-founders of Air Routing International, has helped to start Flight Pro International, a full-service international flight planning company focused on the business aviation segment. This helps fill a void left in July last year when Collins Aerospace discontinued its International Trip Support (ITS) business, which was largely built on Collins’s acquisition of Houston-based Air Routing in late 2009.

In fact, many former Collins ITS employees are now working at Houston-based Flight Pro, including president and COO Matt Pahl, who started at Air Routing in 2007 and left Collins ITS last July. “Flight Pro has assembled a team of the most experienced, passionate professionals, committed to excellence and an industry-leading consultative approach with the highest degree of integrity,” he said.

Flight Pro’s experienced global trip support (GTS) operations team is backed by a network of dedicated in-country experts to help business aircraft operators plan international trips from start to finish, the company said. In addition to its GTS solution, Flight Pro will soon launch a cloud-based software platform, dubbed Flight Pro Connect, described as a “multifaceted trip management tool.”

Jet Aviation Obtains Saudi Arabian Part 125 Certification

Jet Aviation has secured a Part 125 operator certificate from Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation. The certification is now required for all privately operated business jets based in the kingdom—the result of International Civil Aviation Organization recommendations for safe flight operations.

Switzerland-based Jet Aviation has operated in Saudi Arabia for more than 40 years and currently manages more than 60 aircraft in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. In Saudi Arabia, Jet Aviation operates FBOs in Jeddah—its first FBO there, established in 1979—Riyadh, Medina, and Yanbu. All of its FBOs except the one in Yanbu are IS-BAH Stage 2 registered. Yanbu is Jet Aviation's newest and carries an IS-BAH Stage 1 registration that it earned in December.

“Our top priority at Jet Aviation is the safety of our customers, partners, employees, and site visitors,” said Jet Aviation Saudi Arabia general manager Khaled Al-Ghamdi. “We also strive to offer our services as close to demand as possible. This Part 125 certificate both recognizes our high standards and demonstrates our commitment to customers in the region.”

ENAV and Leonardo Demonstrate Helicopter PBN In Italy

Italian air navigation service provider ENAV and Leonardo recently tested and validated the performance-based navigation (PBN) procedure for the Foggia–Tremiti S. Domino Island route in the Apulia region in Southern Italy. This was carried out with an AW169 helicopter operated by Alidaunia, a company providing transport services to and from the Tremiti Islands, as well as emergency medical service missions that support the relevant local community. 

PBN via advanced satellite navigation and aircraft avionics is combined with, or replaces, more traditional land-based radio navigation systems for airspace optimization, more direct routing, and greater approach and landing precision. ENAV and Leonardo announced their collaboration on the project, as well as their intent to offer helicopter PBN products worldwide, in October.

The Foggia-Tremiti S. Domino Island route is the first in a network that is being developed locally to support the helicopter operations of the regional heliport network called Rete Eliportuale Puglia. The successfully validated procedures are the result of a collaboration between Alidaunia and the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency in the framework of the PBN for HEMS in the Apulia Region project.

AIN Webinar: Mitigating 5G Avionics Interference

According to a recent RTCA report, terrestrial 5G telecom systems could cause interference issues with certain existing avionics. This can cause serious safety concerns for aircraft equipped with legacy radar altimeters and other vulnerable products. Solutions to this problem exist, and we will be highlighting these during an educational webinar on 5G interference concerns in the NextGen airspace presented by subject matter experts in avionics manufacturing, installation, and regulatory perspectives.

Please join us on April 28 as AIN editor-in-chief Matt Thurber moderates this webinar with Nathan Hernandez, business development sales manager at Southeast Aerospace; Dr. David Redman, director of Aerospace Vehicles Systems Institute and an RTCA committee member; and Ashley Ring, v-p of sales and marketing at FreeFlight Systems. Sponsored by Freeflight Systems.

Flight Testing a Falcon 7X with SmartThrottle

Dassault’s twin-engine Rafale fighter jet is equipped with what in retrospect seems an absurdly simple design feature: a single throttle lever to control both engines. Dassault engineers had long discussed a similar application for a business jet and now the French manufacturer has conducted extensive flight tests of a single-throttle lever integrated with the three-engine Falcon 7X’s fly-by-wire digital flight control system. Dubbed SmartThrottle, it is like an enhanced autothrottle, incorporating all the normal autothrottle capabilities but taking advantage of digital technology to add safety features such as more comprehensive emergency descent modes, engine failure mitigation, and upset recovery. AIN editor-in-chief Matt Thurber traveled to France to test-fly the SmartThrottle and recovery mode.