Gulfstream recently set its overall 800th city-pair speed record and then subsequently completed what the company claims is the farthest and fastest flight in business aviation history. The missions highlighted the Gulfstream G800’s speed (Mach 0.935 Mmo) and 8,200-nm range.

Earlier last month, a G800 secured the milestone city-pair speed record on a flight from Reykjavik, Iceland, to the OEM’s headquarters in Savannah, Georgia. The ultra-long-range twinjet flew 2,973 nm in 5 hours 52 minutes at an average cruise speed of Mach 0.91.

Then, on June 28, a G800 completed a separate record-setting mission from Melbourne, Australia, to Moline, Illinois. The twinjet covered 8,303 nm in 16 hours 56 minutes, averaging a cruise speed of Mach 0.85.

“With every new aircraft, Gulfstream continues to push the boundaries of performance for our customers,” said company president Mark Burns. “Reaching our 800th city pair speed record and completing the farthest, fastest flight in our industry’s history demonstrates the strength of our next-generation fleet and the advanced capabilities of the G800.”

To date, Gulfstream aircraft have achieved 815 speed records fleet-wide, including 15 set by the G800 since entering service in August.

SoterJets, a subsidiary of South Africa’s CFS Aviation Group, has launched a fractional aircraft ownership program that the company said is the first of its kind in Africa. The program’s first aircraft, a Pilatus PC-12 NG, was delivered in April and is now fully subscribed by four co-owners.

“For many years, fractional ownership has been an underserved opportunity in the regional business aviation market,” said CFS Aviation Group CEO Justin Reeves. “The speed at which we fully subscribed and successfully delivered our first aircraft demonstrates both the demand for this model and the confidence that investors have placed in the SoterJets proposition.”

SoterJets said it has secured a significant commitment toward a second PC-12 turboprop single. Co-owners acquire a beneficial interest in an aircraft while SoterJets manages operational requirements, including crew, maintenance, airworthiness compliance, insurance, and administration. The program bills for occupied flight hours and fixed monthly management fees, according to SoterJets.

CFS Aviation Group has operated and supported PC-12s since 2007. SoterJets said future preowned PC-12 additions will be selected to the same standard ahead of delivery of its first new-production PC-12 PRO in 2028.

Tamarack Aerospace has announced pricing for AirConnect—its purpose-built airborne connectivity fairing and installation system for Cessna Citation CJ1s, CJ2s, and CJ3s—while the supplemental type certificate (STC) advances through FAA review.

AirConnect is offered with two installation tiers: a standard installation at $79,000, completed in five business days, and an expedited, three-business-day installation at $84,000. Tamarack is now accepting fully refundable $12,500 deposits to secure priority installation slots.

The low-earth-orbit (LEO) satcom mounting system has been in active flight trials since March, validating installation procedures and in-flight performance. A second customer aircraft recently joined the trial program, expanding the validation dataset ahead of certification. Tamarack will publish updates as FAA certification milestones are achieved, while installations will start at authorized service facilities upon STC issuance.

AirConnect is a provider-agnostic, permanently installed, aerodynamically optimized system featuring a fairing designed to enclose the LEO satcom antenna selected by the customer. The AirConnect system includes the fairing, router, and cabin Wi-Fi hardware. Operators select and contract directly with their preferred LEO broadband service provider.

“Operators responded to our May announcement with exactly the kind of conviction we hoped to see,” said Tamarack Aerospace president Jacob Klinginsmith. “We’re moving through FAA certification with confidence, and we look forward to putting Tamarack AirConnect on customer aircraft.”

When buying or selling a business aircraft, operational experience matters. Duncan Aviation’s internal Flight Department gives its Aircraft Sales & Acquisitions team firsthand insight into ownership, maintenance, mission planning, and fleet management. That real-world perspective helps buyers make informed decisions and sellers position aircraft more effectively.

Bombardier has opened registration for its Flight Attendant Safety Summit (FASS), scheduled for August 5 to 6 at the company’s Laurent Beaudoin Completion Centre in Montreal. The event is held in collaboration with Bombardier’s Safety Standdown program and is open to all aviation professionals.

Kristopher Cannon, founder and president of Aviation Secure, will return as a presenter, leading a session titled “Closing the Security Gaps.” Cannon, a nationally recognized aviation security consultant and corporate pilot, will cover identifying and managing everyday security risks across hotels, transportation, airport environments, and crew routines using interactive tabletop scenarios and analysis of recent incidents.

The summit grew out of advocacy from Bethan Williams-Velenosi, Bombardier’s chief of cabin experience and lead flight attendant, who serves on the Safety Standdown Advisory Council. In a May 2025 article, Williams-Velenosi wrote that corporate aviation often lags behind commercial airlines in standardized cabin crew safety training. 

“Our commercial colleagues would never dream of allowing an unqualified individual to be responsible for passenger safety in the cabin,” she said. “Why should we accept anything less in corporate aviation?” Williams-Velenosi also cited NTSB findings that cabin crew training has not always adequately prepared flight attendants for accident response, pointing to incidents such as the Endeavor Air CRJ900 that flipped after landing in Toronto as examples of aviation’s unpredictability.

Pilatus is now offering Gogo Galileo as a factory-installed connectivity option on the PC-24, extending global, low-latency satellite broadband to buyers of the Swiss-built twinjet. The system is certified by both the FAA and EASA.

The offering routes in-flight connectivity through Eutelsat OneWeb’s low-earth-orbit satellite constellation, which Pilatus said supports internet access throughout the flight envelope and enables bandwidth-dependent tasks such as videoconferencing and cloud-based applications.

Pilatus positioned the package as an integrated OEM solution rather than an aftermarket addition. The antenna fairings were shaped and located to limit drag, and the company said the resulting configuration has a negligible effect on takeoff performance, climb rate, and cruise speed. According to Pilatus, “The antenna has also been engineered to prevent unwanted [wind] noise, with careful attention to weight and balance to avoid any adverse effects.”

Alongside the connectivity option, Pilatus introduced a cabin entertainment system developed with Lufthansa Technik. It combines a 10-inch touchscreen with a 3D moving map, four cabin loudspeakers with a subwoofer, mood lighting, USB ports, dedicated media storage, and connection to Wi-Fi. Buyers can also specify a side-facing, berthable divan that includes storage space.

Boeing’s Aviation Business Solutions is now offering SkyGuard cybersecurity services by providing its customers access to Cyviation’s SkyRay platform. The SkyGuard services include cyber-risk visibility for commercial and business aviation operators, as well as MROs and manufacturers.

Boeing and Cyviation have been working together since October, and the latest agreement expands on that, “positioning SkyRay as a dedicated compliance infrastructure layer available to ABS’ global customer base.”

SkyGuard’s tail-number-specific digital twin technology models each aircraft’s systems, devices, and connectivity, according to Cyviation. “SkyRay generates audit-ready evidence aligned with FAA, EASA Part-IS, and other regulatory frameworks, runs entirely non-intrusively, and has no impact on airworthiness or daily operations,” the company said.

“Aircraft are now deeply connected systems, and our clients are asking for practical, evidence-based ways to manage cyber risk across their fleets,” said Tim Sikora, cybersecurity and digital practice principal at Boeing. “SkyGuard brings together Boeing’s deep aircraft expertise with best-in-class strategic partners like Cyviation. SkyRay gives operators continuous governance and compliance readiness without touching the physical aircraft or impacting airworthiness, exactly the combination the industry needs as regulators raise the bar.”

Global business jet activity declined last week by 0.7% compared to the previous week, according to the latest weekly usage report from industry data tracker WingX. However, activity was up 3.7% from a year ago.

North America was flat year over year, up just 0.2% overall. While California flights were down 2.3%, activity in Florida increased by 5.7%. Thus far for 2026, larger aircraft, including ultra-long-range and super-midsize jets, have fared better than their smaller siblings, up 9.4% and 8.5%, respectively.

In Europe, activity declined for the second straight week, down 2.6%. While France led in usage (+6.6%), Italy (-13.2%), Germany (-6.6%), and Switzerland (-1.3%) all saw decreases. Business jet usage for the rest of the world was relatively static.

Looking ahead to this weekend in the U.S., New York’s business jet traffic consistently contracts over the Independence Day holiday, according to the JetNet subsidiary. This year, however, the holiday lands on a Saturday, and the city is averaging 1,300 arrivals over a typical weekend this summer. Two other events could affect the usual drawdown in traffic for July 4: Taylor Swift’s wedding and a FIFA World Cup match in New Jersey, both of which could pull additional traffic into the New York area that would not otherwise see a lot of activity.

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