How is LABACE 2019? “The fair has been very good in term of client traffic,” said ABAG chairman Leonardo Fiuza, who is also president of Textron Aviation representative TAM Aviação Executiva. “The fair is taking place at a moment of transition for the country, which we hope will transform the second half into good results for all. We’re coming from difficult years for the country, and for the industry."
LABACE 2019 has been a fair of unusual juxtapositions. The most prominent is at Embraer’s stand, where the company’s first commercial product, the restored Bandeirante, sits side-by-side with its latest, the super-midsize Praetor 500, certified on the fair’s opening day. São Paulo’s weather contributed a literal chill to this year’s event, with a cold front moving in hours after the fair opened under excessive heat.
LABACE itself faces an uncertain future. The static display has always been at Congonhas Airport, a temporary luxury oasis of a billion dollars worth of the newest and latest in business aviation, nestled among the crumbling hangars of failed state airline VASP.
This year the space was rented from a home improvements superstore that has leased the irreplaceable runway-level area from federal airport administrator Infraero. If the store construction moves forward by December—and the assumption is that it will—LABACE must move elsewhere. Plan A for Labace 2020 is Campo de Marte, but which the governor wishes to close, a threat made by politicians since 1958. Congonhas is Plan B. There is no Plan C.
Brazil has the world’s second-largest civil aviation fleet, but only two original equipment manufacturers (OEMs): Embraer and Helibras, the Airbus Helicopters local subsidiary. The promise of adding three more emerged this week at LABACE 2019: Boeing Brasil Commercial, Kopter (with a Brazil factory), and Octans Aircraft. The latter has delivered more than 240 experimental aircraft since 2002 and is moving into the production of certified aircraft with its five-passenger Cygnus, which was unveiled this week at LABACE.
The five-passenger Cygnus has a metallic structure, high cantilevered wing, fixed tricycle landing gear, day/night VFR and IFR capabilities, and is powered by a 300-hp Lycoming IO-540 engine with a Hartzell three-blade metal propeller. Air conditioning and leather seats are part of the interior designed by Studio Marcelo Teixeira. The Cygnus is being developed to meet ANAC and FAA Part 23 requirements and will start the path to certification next year in line with ANAC’s iBR2020 program of support for small aircraft certification.
Octans, which had operated under the name INPAER, moved to the upstate São Paulo city of São José da Boa Vista, and new partners have invested more than $20 million in the migration to certified aircraft, looking at both the Brazilian and export markets, and eventually other follow-on models.
Paraguay’s Royal FBO is the first Paraguayan company to exhibit at LABACE and one of the rare exhibitors from outside Brazil. The company provides “more personalized” handling services, according to dispatch team members Angélica Segovia and Esteban Insaurralde, who are representing the FBO at the show.
Royal, based at Silvio Petirossi International Airport in Luque, Paraguay, provides FBO and handling services in the southern cone of South America, but extends its handling service all over the world. Royal recently handled all the arrangements for a client’s trip to Africa, Segovia said.
Describing what makes Royal different, she said, “We know all the customers, and when you call, you will always deal with the same person for every operation. You won’t have a chain of five e-mails each answered by a different person, not knowing who’s responsible.”
Segovia said that Royal’s portfolio includes clients from Bolivia and Peru and it provides general aviation services to the air forces of both those countries, including making arrangements for international trips by both countries’ presidents.
Royal also provides aircraft management services, and the first LABACE appearance is proof of Segovia’s affirmation that the company is “starting to grow.”
G600 Comes To LABACE Ready To Serve
On the heels of the first G600 delivery, Gulfstream is displaying the aircraft model this week at LABACE; it made its Brazilian debut last year. The new G600 is being shown alongside a G650ER and a G280. The company handed over the first example of its large-cabin, long-range G600 to an undisclosed U.S. customer last Thursday.
Delivering the first aircraft is another major milestone for the G600 program, following the June 28 award by the FAA of both type and production certificates. Its certification effort included 100,000 hours of laboratory testing and 3,200 flight hours.
“Getting both authorizations on the same day is evidence of the maturity of our G600 production processes and speaks to the safety and reliability of the aircraft’s design,” said Mark Burns, the Savannah, Georgia-based airframer’s president.
On show at LABACE is one of the five flight-test G600s that is also now being used as a sales demonstrator. It still remains on an experimental certificate, but Gulfstream said it will be modified to certification-conforming standards.
Despite there having only been what CEO Rogério Andrade describes as a slow improvement in business confidence in Brazil over the past 18 months, Avantto has seen its revenues and operating profit grow strongly throughout the period. Even more encouragingly for Avantto, Andrade told AIN that this year the company’s financial performance is shaping up to be even better than it was in 2016, 2017, and 2018—all of which proved to be very good years for the fractional-ownership and aircraft-management company.
In fact, Avantto’s revenue and operating profit performance in the first half of this year outdid even the previous three years’ strong results and the company thinks its 2019 second-half performance will be even better. Andrade reckons revenues will grow 20 percent for the second half and its earnings about 30 percent on a year-over-year basis.
Last year’s strong financial performance and the even better prospects Avantto is facing in 2019 as Brazil’s dominant fractional-ownership operator has allowed the company to continue investing in its core fleet of aircraft and helicopters. Avantto inducted another Embraer Phenom 300 at the end of last year and it further added another in the first half of this year. It plans to add yet another Phenom 300 and an additional Leonardo AW109 by year-end, according to Andrade.
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