The 2022 MEBAA show drew to a close on Thursday afternoon in Dubai, with host Middle East and North African Business Aviation Association (MEBAA) calling the event a success. According to MEBAA, the biennial show drew attendees from 95 countries across the three days, with an increase in international attendees compared to the previous one in 2018 (the 2020 event was canceled due to the pandemic). More than 100 exhibitors connected with attendees while showcasing their latest innovations, technologies, aircraft, and solutions.
“This has been a remarkable MEBAA show and it has been incredible to see industry leaders come together to drive real change for the future of business aviation,” said MEBAA founding and executive chairman Ali Ahmed Alnaqbi. “At MEBAA we also want to empower the future leaders, and it was fantastic to welcome students who have an interest in our sector and provide them with the platform to network with industry players and learn more about the vast opportunities available to them.”
Meanwhile, the BizAv Talks sessions, introduced this year, featured more than 45 industry leaders over the three-day show. Sessions highlighted the importance of collaboration within the business aviation ecosystem to open new opportunities, streamline services, and tackle issues facing the sector.
The next MEBAA Show is scheduled for December 10 to 12, 2024, in Dubai.
Airbus Corporate Jets racked up six orders and five deliveries worldwide this year, and expects to deliver its first ACJ TwoTwenty to a Dubai-based customer in the upcoming first quarter, company commercial v-p Chadi Saade said at the MEBAA Show 2022.
It expects to sell 15 ACJs in the next five years to Middle Eastern government, VIP, and charter operators. Today, it has a pipeline of 15 ACJ TwoTwenties under completion by Comlux at its Indianapolis, Indiana facility for worldwide delivery over the next four years.
“There is strong sales potential for this aircraft in the region,” Saade said. “It will be important to show it around the world. It has opened the door to many new customers for us.”
ACJ is reporting a significant spike in traffic for its business jets year to date—up 42 percent versus the same period in 2019, in terms of the number of departures in the Middle East. Saade said this had made regional charter very complicated due to a lack of aircraft availability.
Worldwide, he said Airbus had one commitment and two deliveries on the ACJ330, one delivery and three orders on the ACJ320neo family, and two deliveries and two orders for the ACJ TwoTwenty so far in 2022.
While progress continues to be made in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) availability, carbon offsets are still the first and perhaps easiest means toward sustainability, said Trine Braathen, senior manager of sustainability-carbon markets for World Kinect Energy. But Braathen and other panelists speaking last week at a MEBAA Show panel on strategies for business aviation sustainability, agree SAF is a key element toward meeting the industry's goals in the shorter and long term.
Braathen pointed out the various means for business aviation organizations to become more efficient but said the biggest step towards net-zero is addressing fuel. That is what makes SAF so important, she said. But given its limited availability, organizations should look at other means, such as offsets, until SAF is more accessible. “The main challenge at the moment is actually to scale SAF,” Braathen said.
Meanwhile, SAF is a growing element. It’s technologically ready, with panelists stressing it is jet fuel. Alexandre Geahchan—Air bp's MENA commercial, general, and military account aviation manager—emphasized, “Its chemistry is quite similar to the fossil jet fuel that it replaces. That's why it makes a promising solution. And it’s a solution that we can use right now” with all-electric and hydrogen still in the distance.
JetNet iQ managing director Rolland Vincent said demand for sustainable options is there. Owners and operators are interested in good governance, he noted.
Boeing Business Jets logged four orders and two green and one completed deliveries this year, the company told AIN at MEBAA 2022. “Next year is looking much stronger, though, as we have a number of what we think are good probability campaigns in work,” said Boeing Business Jets director of marketing Alex Fecteau. “We’ve had a total of 15 BBJ Max orders, and delivered eight, with seven in the pipeline to delivery.”
Citing WingX flight data, Fecteau said 34 percent of all BBJ flights arrived or departed in the Middle East between January 2019 and September 2022. WingX’s global business jet moving seven-day average for flights shows global traffic is up 14 percent on 2019 year-to-date, while the Middle East is up 62 percent over the same period.
He called the Middle East a small-market, big-impact arena, playing host to only 2.5 percent of all business jets but with 55 percent of those in the large or bizliner segments. The Middle East alone accounts for 25 percent of the worldwide bizliner fleet, or 98 aircraft, he said.
Government, VVIP, charter, and corporate operators in the MENA region are home to 29 percent of the BBJ fleet, with a total of 78 aircraft, 69 of them in the Gulf Cooperation Council. The Middle East is also home to 50 percent of all widebody BBJs.
International Business Aviation Council director general Kurt Edwards welcomed attendees to the MEBAA Show last week, expressing enthusiasm about the return of the three-day event after a four-year, Covid-induced hiatus and stressing that it was time for “setting the record straight.”
“It is so exciting to be back here after four years and I'm really glad to see this turnout. I'm glad to see the number of exhibitors here,” Edwards said kicking off the series of panel sessions MEBAA hosted on the show floor.
The show was providing a forum for the industry to discuss challenges, opportunities business models, financing, regulations, and a range of other pressing issues, he said.
Edwards said one such key issue is sustainability, adding, “[The industry has] been getting a lot of [negative] press in this area recently” and it's an issue “we are going to face one way or another.”
Industry needs to change the prevailing perception because it “has been striving for sustainability for years. We all want to be more fuel efficient. We all want to use less fuel...We've been doing that now for decades. Our industry is very innovative.”
He pointed to innovations specific to business aviation, as well as efforts such as commitments to net-zero carbon emissions, and noted that the International Civil Aviation Organization largely adopted a roadmap led by industry.
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