Blade India Starts Helo Air-taxi Service in Mumbai
New York-based Blade Urban Air Mobility, which offers helicopter air-taxi service in New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, and majority partner Delhi-based Hunch Ventures recently started preliminary routes in India. It also has firm plans to expand helicopter services in the business, pilgrim, and tourism sectors in India, Blade India managing director Amit Dutta told AIN.
He added that the short-haul pilot flights between Mumbai, India’s commercial capital; Pune, an industrial and automobile center 75 miles away; and pilgrim town Shirdi using an Airbus H130 with a 268-mile range flown by a local operator was reaping a load factor of 80 percent since the launch in late November. Dutta added a large majority of customers had flown more than once in that time period.
Starting on January 15, the company is further rationalizing its service in India and will be adding frequency with a Bell 407. “We will also look at a regular shuttle air-taxi between Mumbai and Pune—a four- to five-hour road journey compressed into 37 minutes by air,” added Dutta.
Blade India is now planning to expand to the southern state of Karnataka, with Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore) as its capital with a large business and “high-value tourism routes.” Details on this expansion will be released by the end of next month. The product is expected to be similar to Blade Bounce of its U.S. counterpart.
Here are my top-five challenges that I believe will affect many business aircraft owners, lessors, lenders, managers, insurance and buy/sell brokers, and technical consultants in 2020:
Ethical Business Transactions. Everyone has a new opportunity in 2020 to renew their efforts to play by the applicable rules regardless of inconsistent or questionable behavior of others. IADA, NATA, and NBAA all offer ethics guidelines.
Illegal Charters. Expect both illegal charter and flight department company operations to be on the FAA’s radar in 2020, likely more so than you have ever seen before.
Bonus Depreciation and Other Tax Planning. A buyer committed to purchasing an aircraft should make a New Year’s resolution to analyze primary tax aspects of owning, operating, and storing the aircraft, and tax minimization structures, ideally, before signing a letter of intent to buy an aircraft.
ADS-B Out Privacy. To address ADS-B privacy concerns, operators should quickly evaluate and decide whether to participate in the FAA’s Privacy ICAO Address (PIA) and/or Limiting Aircraft Data Displayed (LADD) programs.
Insurance Turbulence. If you plan to buy or renew insurance coverage in 2020, buckle up. Plagued by years of huge payouts and financial losses, some insurers have exited the market, resulting in reduced liability insurance capacity for all aircraft and much higher premiums (anecdotally, 20 percent to up to 300 percent above 2019 rates).
After drawing more than 1,800 attendees to its 2019 Falcon Maintenance and Operations (M&O) seminars, Dassault is following with an eight-city tour this year for the program, beginning April 1 in Paris.
These sessions will provide in-depth technical information for the Falcon lineup. The interactive sessions are model specific and general, covering a range of topics from troubleshooting to reliability improvements and STC updates. Dassault's Falcon Pilot Support team will lead dedicated pilot sessions.
In addition, the sessions will provide an update on service center expansion as the company builds on its strategy to move closer to its global customer base. In 2019, the company added operations in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, bringing on board nearly 1,000 service professionals in 17 locations.
“These seminars provide crucial feedback that allows us to continuously improve the Falcon customer experience,” said Jean Kayanakis, senior v-p of worldwide customer service and service center network.
Along with current products, the M&O events scheduled in Paris on April 1 and 2 and in Dallas on April 8 will cover classic Falcons, including the Model 10, 20, and 50. Other events will be held April 16 in Denver; April 23, Toluca, Mexico; April 29, São Paulo, Brazil; May 12, White Plains, New York; May 19, Chicago; and October 21, Beijing.
Boeing Recommends Sim Training Requirement for Max
Boeing will recommend to the FAA that 737 Max pilots receive simulator training along with computer-based training before the model returns to service, the company said Tuesday. The concession comes after Boeing and the FAA for months resisted a simulator requirement as part of the revamped flight training regimen for the grounded jet. This change in opinion arose as Boeing and regulators proposed rewriting some emergency checklists for pilots and creating some new ones, according to unnamed officials quoted by The Wall Street Journal.
“Safety is Boeing’s top priority,” said interim Boeing CEO Greg Smith. “Public, customer, and stakeholder confidence in the 737 Max is critically important to us, and with that focus Boeing has decided to recommend Max simulator training combined with computer-based training for all pilots.”
Meanwhile, the FAA expects Boeing to update certain cockpit alerts to notify crews of potential problems with the airplane’s maneuvering characteristics augmentation system (MCAS). Investigators have implicated problems with the system as the source of the loss of control experienced by the pilots of the twin crashes of the Max, leading to 346 deaths and the global grounding of the model in March.
In related news, Spirit Aerosystems today announced it will lay off about 2,800 workers in Wichita due to the production pause of the Max. Spirit produces about 70 percent of the airplane.
Public Charter Provider JSX Adds Eighth Destination
Public charter provider JSX (formerly JetSuiteX) will launch service between Portland International Airport (PDX) and King County International Airport/Boeing Field (BFI) on April 2, increasing its route network to eight destinations: Orange County (SNA), Las Vegas (LAS), Concord/East Bay (CCR); Oakland (OAK), Phoenix (PHI), Burbank (BUR), and seasonally to Mammoth Mountain (MMH).
“In just four years, we have grown to more than 2,200 monthly flights, clear evidence that this type of unique air service is filling a void left by major carriers while meeting the previously unfulfilled needs of business and leisure travelers alike,” said JSX CEO and co-founder Alex Wilcox. JSX will begin operating the PDX route with five, daily roundtrip flights on its 30-seat Embraer 135 and 145 twin-engine regional jets. A one-way fare starts at $49.
Wilcox, who is also co-founder and CEO of private charter operator JetSuite, helped start JSX in 2016 after watching demand for short-distance flights on JetSuite rise while airlines saw double-digit capacity declines on flights under 500 miles.
Eurocontrol Criteria Change Could Increase Route Charges
Eurocontrol is now using the actual route flown to establish the distance factor used to calculate route charges in Europe. Previously, the distance factor was calculated based on an aircraft’s last filed flight plan. The new criteria could lead to higher charges for some operators.
This change was “driven by increasing availability of flight and aircraft data and ensures that air navigation service providers receive revenues for those flights that have actually passed through their airspace,” said Eurocontrol. “It should also increase predictability, and as a result support the most efficient use of airspace in the network, as it takes away the incentive for operators to file route charges-optimized flight plans that are not always adhered to.”
The European Commission has resumed its review of Boeing’s proposed acquisition of 80 percent of Embraer’s commercial aircraft division, two months after halting work on the in-depth probe. “The clock has been restarted in the commission investigation into the joint ventures proposed by Boeing and Embraer on January 6,” a commission spokesperson told AIN. “The new decision deadline is April 30, 2020.”
In November, the EU’s antitrust regulator “stopped the clock” on the probe. This procedure in EU merger investigations becomes activated if the parties fail to provide, in a timely fashion, an important piece of information that the commission has requested from them. Once the parties supply the missing information, the clock restarts and the deadline for the commission’s decision gets adjusted accordingly.
In an emailed statement to AIN, Boeing and Embraer stressed they “have been engaged with the European Commission and other global regulatory authorities since late 2018,” adding they have received unconditional clearance to close the transaction from “almost all jurisdictions.”
The deal needs approval by competition authorities in nine countries. Seven jurisdictions—the U.S., China, Japan, South Africa, Kenya, Colombia, and Montenegro—have approved the tie-up, without demanding changes to the deal. Only the EU and Brazil have not yet cleared the proposed transaction.
Aviation Institute of Maintenance (AIM) Chesapeake has moved to a 109,000-sq-ft facility on an 11-acre campus in Norfolk, Virginia, the school announced this week. The move comes shortly after AIM acquired the Teterboro School of Aeronautics in the New York City metropolitan area, the school’s 13th campus in the U.S.
“Our new campus is our largest aviation maintenance campus around the country, with two aircraft hangars, a glass-enclosed engine room, and a gym and basketball court to enhance student life,” said AIM v-p of operations Joel English. A separate engine room, along with specific areas for welding, soldering, and composites, are also part of the new campus. Its equipment includes multi- and single-engine aircraft, airframes, turbine and piston engines, helicopters, and specially-designed training aids.
An on-site certified testing center where students can take their FAA written examinations is also housed in the Norfolk campus, which was previously a Christian school.
Land, Taxi, Park, Then Rate FBO While You Wait
Don’t wait—AIN’s FBO survey is now open for year-round feedback. It takes only a minute, and you can do it while waiting for passengers, on the shuttle bus to/from the hotel or any other time that is convenient for you. Log on to www.ainonline.com/fbosurvey to rate your experiences at the FBOs you visit. Voting for this year's survey closes February 2.
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