JSSI, Avfuel Partner on Customer Sustainability

Aircraft maintenance plan provider JSSI is aligning with industry fuel distributor Avfuel to help its clients meet their environmental sustainability goals. In addition to offering an online carbon dioxide calculator to estimate emissions and adding a simple option to purchase carbon offset credits on its online customer portal, JSSI will have resources available to facilitate the purchase of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) through Avfuel.

Produced from biomatter and residual wastes by Neste, the blended SAF offers lifecycle carbon-reduction benefits over conventional jet fuel. Currently approved for use at blends of up to 50 percent, SAF if used in its neat form can deliver up to 80 percent less greenhouse gas emissions.

“The Avfuel team admires JSSI’s dedication to helping clients cut carbon emissions,” said Craig Sincock, the Michigan-based fuel company’s president and CEO. “We are proud to collaborate to provide efficient tools that make a proven difference in sustainability.”

“With approximately 10 percent of the world’s business aviation fleet enrolled on JSSI maintenance programs, we aspire to have a meaningful impact on our industry objective of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050,” said JSSI chairman and CEO Neil Book. “As research and technology continue to advance, we intend to explore many other innovative paths towards decarbonization.”

Bombardier, Rolls-Royce Agree on Leased Engine Pool

Bombardier and Rolls-Royce have reached an agreement in which the Canadian airframer will have a pool of Rolls-Royce-owned leased BR710 engines on-site at its service centers for Global customers whose aircraft are equipped with the turbofan engine. The agreement is expected to reduce Global aircraft operators’ downtime and costs.

The program will launch first at Bombardier service centers in Wichita; Tucson, Arizona; and Hartford, Connecticut, and will expand to include service centers at London Biggin Hill, Berlin, and Singapore. Bombardier aircraft using the BR710 engines include the Global Express/XRS/6000 and Global 5000.

Since the centers will be housing the leased engines, they’ll also be providing the post-lease maintenance, which Bombardier said will ensure a faster turnaround time for the company, as well as eliminate lease engine shipping costs. “The expansion of our lease engine pool locations to selected Bombardier-authorized service centers ensures quick turnaround times and better accessibility for our BR710 customers, further strengthening our global services network,” said Andy Robinson, Rolls-Royce's business aviation senior v-p of customers and services.

IBAC Aids ICAO Global Reopening Effort through Workshop

The International Business Aviation Council (IBAC) has developed a public health risk-management workshop to support efforts by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to provide guidance that would support a return of international flights. The ICAO Public Health Corridor (PHC) workshop is part of a broader virtual implementation package (iPack) that ICAO has launched online. Developed for national authorities, the PHC iPack training is designed to facilitate the reopening of cross-border air travel.

“This is an opportunity for industry to advise regulators and policymakers around the world on how best to facilitate the maintenance and return of air transport in a safe, efficient manner in line with agreed public-health and operational guidance,” said IBAC director-general Kurt Edwards. “We coordinated subject matter experts from nearly 20 travel-related businesses and associations to gather their input for the workshop content.”

IBAC worked with Vancouver-based TrainingPort and MedAire to develop the workshop curriculum. “This new training curriculum will empower states to safely reopen borders after careful risk assessments and will undoubtedly contribute to the rebound of aviation on a global scale,” said Dr. Paulo M. Alves, MedAire’s global director of aviation health.

“It was an honor to work with numerous relevant industry subject matter experts to design and produce such important content, and to collectively work toward getting the world traveling safely again,” added TrainingPort CEO Bryan Barratt.

Soccer Star’s Private Jet Transfer Flags Privacy Issues

Last week’s tracking of a private jet flight taken by soccer star Lionel Messi from his former club Barcelona to his new employer Paris Saint-Germain by almost 120,000 people speaks volumes about the celebrity status of top-class athletes like the 34-year-old Argentinian superstar. But it also raised some eyebrows among those who question whether it should be so easy to track flights taken by high-profile individuals who may have valid security concerns.

FlightRadar24 data made it all too clear that the Malta-registered Bombardier Global 7500 was operated by private flight provider VistaJet. Combined with abundant news flow around Messi’s high-profile departure from the Spanish soccer institution, it provided clear details about his imminent arrival at Paris LeBourget Airport on August 10.

On numerous other occasions, the ability to track flights has been valuable to reporters and others with a high level of interest in the movements of business jets. While EBAA has made clear its concerns over privacy, it acknowledges that there is little hope of securing the type of protection that allows aircraft tail numbers to be concealed in the U.S.

“Since there are 26 air navigation service providers in the European Union alone and even more if we look at the Eurocontrol area, it is much more difficult to have a similar process in Europe,” an EBAA spokesman told AIN.

Gulfstream G500/600 OK’d for Lower-mtow Ops

Gulfstream received FAA approval last week for aircraft service change (ASC) 005 that lowers the maximum ramp and takeoff weights for the G500/600, enabling the twinjet models to use airports with 75,000-pound-mtow limits. Specifically, this list includes Florida’s Naples Airport (KAPF) and California’s Long Beach (KLGB), which both limit operations to aircraft with dual gear to a certified maximum gross weight of 75,000 pounds or less.

Those limitations are a problem for the G500 and G600. The G500 has ramp and maximum takeoff weights of 80,000 pounds and 79,600 pounds, respectively, while the G600 has a ramp weight of 95,000 pounds and an mtow of 94,600 pounds. The mod—which is achieved via a placard and aircraft flight manual amendments—lowers these weights to 74,900 pounds for the two large-cabin Gulfstreams, rendering them legal to use at KAPF and KLGB. On the G600, it also lowers the max landing weight to 74,900 pounds, while the G500’s remains unchanged at 64,350 pounds.

At airports without such weight limits, the ASC 005 placard can be removed to allow operators to take advantage of the higher weights permitted under the original type certificate, a Gulfstream spokesman told AIN.

Aviation Coalition Protests Brazilian Tax Proposal

A broad coalition of aviation interests, including the Brazilian General Aviation Association (ABAG), released a joint letter opposing the proposed loss of a 30-year exemption from Brazilian import duties and several other VAT-type assessments that would raise the industry’s tax burden by an estimated $955 million. A legislative committee added the change to a broad tax reform bill promised during the presidential campaign.

These taxes would apply to imports and sales in the domestic market for aircraft, spare parts, and maintenance services, as well as for import duties. Sixty percent of the cost would fall on airlines and cargo carriers, and the rest on general and agricultural aviation.

The letter argues that the moment is inopportune, given the severe effect of the pandemic on aviation, which suffered a 60 percent drop in revenue in Brazil. The current unfavorable exchange rate of the Brazilian real represents an additional strain for an industry that calculates 50 percent of its costs in dollars.

While the associations said they support the idea of a broad reform of the country’s array of overlapping taxes, the bill’s reduction of corporate profit taxes won’t compensate for the loss of the exemption. The letter concludes by recalling how both airlines and general aviation helped transport medical supplies, personnel, and patients at the height of the pandemic.

Samaritan’s Purse DC-8 Providing Rapid Haiti Relief

Less than 36 hours after a 7.2 magnitude earthquake devastated Haiti on Saturday, a Samaritan’s Purse DC-8-72CF landed in Port au Prince carrying 31 tons of relief supplies and members of the $750 million private charity’s Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART). The cargo included emergency shelter material, medical supplies, and filtration units to provide clean water daily for thousands of people. Samaritan’s Purse is already preparing a second airlift to transport an emergency field hospital, surgical teams, and other doctors and nurses into Haiti.  

The 1968 DC-8, which Samaritan’s Purse acquired in 2015, is the largest of the organization’s 17 aircraft positioned around the globe. With two full-time, three-man crews, it flies 300 to 600 hours a year, transporting supplies and personnel to disasters worldwide, according to George Kalbfleisch, director of flight operations and a captain on the aircraft for the organization. “We can load and go within 24 hours after we get a call,” he said.

The aircraft is based at Greensboro-Spartanburg International airport (KGSO) in North Carolina, a little more than an hour’s drive from the Samaritan’s Purse freight staging area in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. When major disaster strikes, “Wilkesboro immediately starts building freight and we start doing flight planning. The freight comes palletized, ready to go on the airplane,” Kalbfleisch said. “You just pull out the Jepp manual and the long-range nav manual [and start flight planning]."

Wrdl1/TVnet Launches Jetflites Network

Online video and television provider Wrld1/TVnet is launching a network dedicated to private aviation called Jetflites. The network joins the more than 200 forums that Wrld1TVnet has added covering topics in a variety of industries from music to entertainment to a channel dedicated to Covid.

In moving into the private aviation realm, Nathan Sassover, founder and CEO of Wrld1/TVNet, said, “What we saw was a decentralized but intriguing community that may respond to an online forum and social destination for this highly engaged affinity group."

This is particularly important as Covid “has had and continues to have a profound and continuing impact on the global private aviation market,” Sassover said, noting “TVNET wondered how… perceptions of need and value conjoined with mandatory health and safety priorities could translate to engagement with this rarefied audience.”

Additionally, the company highlighted a snapshot of the business aviation market that includes a forecast 2.5 percent compound annual growth rate through 2026 and continued growth expectations in the charter market, particularly in Asian corridors. In fact, it noted that U.S. owners are now looking to Asia for preowned aircraft as the U.S. has a shortage of supply and pointed to aircraft sales and acquisition firm Jetcraft, which it said has bought up to four aircraft in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

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