Following up on President Biden’s pledge to make corporate jet users “pay their share,” which drew ire from the business aviation community, the White House yesterday proposed a fivefold phased-in increase of the jet fuel tax for private users and lengthening the depreciation terms for business aircraft. Included in the President's Fiscal Year 2025 budget request, the proposal comes in addition to the White House directive for the IRS to step up audits of business aircraft users to make sure they are properly classifying business and private uses.

The Department of Transportation released a statement saying the budget proposes to “crack down on a corporate jet funding loophole.” Taking a page from past arguments surrounding business aviation's contribution to the National Airspace System, the DOT said the system “has largely been disproportionately funded by commercial air passengers.”

According to the agency, private jets account for 7 percent of operations handled by air traffic control but contribute just 0.6 percent of the taxes that make up the Airport and Airway Trust Fund. Plans would call for a phased-in fuel increase from the current 21.9 cents per gallon to $1.06 per gallon in FY2029 on jet fuel used by non-commercial operators. The DOT said the tax would increase to 38.64 cents next year with a 16.84 cents per gallon increase in each subsequent year until 2029.

In addition, the budget would extend the depreciation length for business aircraft to seven years.

Following a year of declining fuel sales, the FBO industry is poised for a rather flat year in 2024, according to the Aviation Business Strategies Group’s (ABSG) annual fuel sales survey and industry forecast, released today at the opening of the 2024 NBAA Schedulers and Dispatchers Conference in Fort Worth, Texas.

Company principals John Enticknap and Ron Jackson said 41 percent of this year’s survey respondents reported a decrease in fuel sales last year versus 2022, which they described as “an unusually high number.” That is 12 percentage points higher than the proportion of survey respondents who reported declining sales between 2021 and 2022.

“After FBO fuel sales recovered in 2021 to pre-pandemic levels, we have seen a gradual softening across the market spectrum over the past two years,” said Enticknap. “This downward trend seems to indicate that the general aviation market is testing a lower annual fuel volume level as jet-A fuel prices remain mostly elevated.”

While geopolitical issues can cause disruptions in the global petroleum market, ABSG expects oil prices to ease somewhat ahead of the U.S. elections this fall.

Looking ahead to this year, 41 percent of survey takers predict their fuel sales volume will be flat in 2024, with another 30 percent anticipating a moderate increase of up to 4 percent, while 14 percent predicted a decline in their fuel volume.

NBAA and FBO chain Cutter Aviation have partnered to launch the "Fueling the Future" program “to help the association in its advocacy initiatives to foster an environment that allows business aviation to thrive in the United States and around the world.” The program allows operators to contribute a portion of fuel expenditures at Cutter FBOs to support NBAA’s advocacy efforts, including Climbing Fast.

“We are pleased to partner with Cutter Aviation, a valued NBAA member, to launch Fueling the Future, which will help us fund business aviation advocacy efforts,” said NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen. “We appreciate Cutter’s efforts and look forward to expanding the Fueling the Future program to enable broader participation across the industry.”

Cutter Aviation president and CEO Will Cutter said the company was encouraged by the partnership with NBAA. “We’re proud to be the first participant in the Fueling the Future program, and delighted to have the opportunity to help give NBAA a bigger voice than ever,” he said.

“We have different ways people can give to NBAA to support our efforts on advocacy, and one of the things we said, ‘What if we made it pretty easy for people who want to give more to support NBAA and its initiatives?” said NBAA senior v-p of strategy, marketing, and innovation Andrew Broom.

Garmin GTN Xi navigators and TXi flight displays will soon be certified as the primary indicator for the GXW 8000 StormOptix weather radar, allowing pilots to display and control the radar using the GTN and TXi.

The addition of these products as primary indicators makes Garmin’s GWX 8000 available for potentially thousands of high-performance piston- and turbine-powered aircraft that don’t have Garmin-integrated flight decks. The expanded display interface capability should be available in the second quarter of this year. Aircraft equipped with the GWX 75 radar can be updated to the GWX 8000 configuration with a software update to the GTN Xi or TXi.

StormOptix auto mode technology frees pilots from the task of manually configuring radar settings. The radar automatically adjusts tilt and gain by merging 3D volumetric scanning and advanced ground clutter suppression, giving pilots a composite, real-time depiction of the weather with volumetric profiles of areas of precipitation and a 16-color palette.

Turbulence detection and hail/lightning prediction are included, along with Garmin’s Weather Attenuated Color Highlight Technology, which Garmin said “helps pilots identify shadowing effects of cell activity and highlights areas where radar returns are weakened or attenuated by intense precipitation.” 

In aircraft equipped with at least two of the GWX 8000-compatible displays, “pilots can look at individual tilts and returns on their side of the cockpit for increased situational awareness.”

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Runway 10/28 at Norwood (Massachusetts) Memorial Airport (KOWD) is scheduled to be closed for repairs from March 18 through early to mid-June. “The project should take eight to 12 weeks to complete,” according to airport authorities. “During that time, the runway will not be available for use except for taxiing between Runway 17/35 and Taxiway A.” The work is not expected to impact operations on Runway 17/35.

Meanwhile, the airport recently raised landing fees by about 20 percent. These fees apply only to transient operations and start at $18 for fixed-wing aircraft with mtows of 5,000 to 8,000 pounds and increase incrementally to $96 for airplanes with mtows of more than 30,001 pounds. Non-exempt transient helicopters will be assessed a $24 landing fee regardless of mtow.

Airport management said these fees will not apply to aircraft being used by the military, government, or law enforcement or for medical evacuation, life support (including Angel Flight), or a declared emergency, They will also not apply to aircraft based at KOWD (must be on the airport’s master list).

Leonardo today rolled out ambitious plans to achieve a step change in financial performance across its complex civil and military portfolio. Briefing financial analysts and reporters in Rome, the Italian aerospace and defense group’s CEO and general manager, Roberto Cingolani, said revenues are expected to climb from €16 billion ($17.5 billion) in 2023 to €21.3 billion in 2028.

Through a process of transformation that will involve rationalization of existing core businesses, including helicopter manufacturing and aerostructures, and heavy investments in digital technology, Leonardo intends to almost double its annual earnings before interest and taxes (EBITA) to €2.5 billion. Hitting these targets will involve growth in orders from €18.7 billion to €22.6 billion, as well as cost savings of €1.8 billion across the group that will include selling some as-yet-unspecified business units.

Reporting financial results for 2023, Leonardo said revenues grew by 3.9 percent, to €15.3 billion, while the value of new orders increased by 3.8 percent, to €17.9 billion. Earnings improved by 5.9 percent, to €1.3 billion.

Revenues at Leonardo’s helicopter division rose by 3.9 percent, to €4.7 billion. While orders for rotorcraft last year fell by 9 percent, to 5,513 units, the backlog at year-end 2023 still was 6 percent higher than a year earlier, rising to 14,426 units.

Stack Aero today announced a partnership with FL3XX, a digital operations management system. “We are creating a single source of truth as we remove silos to deliver consistency of data across the dual platforms. The flight requests, offers, and fixed bookings generated in FL3XX merge with Stack Aero client information to create a repository of data giving commercial teams clearer visibility and insight into their business activity,” said Stack Aero CEO Greg Jarrett. “The easy-to-access data can inform business-critical decisions, support proactive sales, and enhance productivity.”

This partnership will allow trip requests, quotes, and bookings generated in FL3XX to be integrated with customer accounts, CRM, and data from Stack Aero to provide a streamlined experience for sales teams. The software will incorporate customer preferences and incorporate reporting and analytics modules. This integration aims to remove the need for the double entry of information, minimizing data input errors.

Customers who subscribe to both platforms can switch directly between the Stack Aero Account/Quote/Trip modules and the FL3XX Quote/Trip functionality. The integration is in a pilot phase and is anticipated to be commercially available in the second quarter.

Avfuel and renewable fuel producer Neste have finalized an extension to their agreement regarding the supply of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and set a framework for the deal through 2027. The two companies announced this news today, at the start of the NBAA Schedulers & Dispatchers Conference in Fort Worth, Texas.

Since the beginning of the supply agreement, Avfuel’s uptake of SAF has tripled each year, and in keeping with that exponential growth, it will triple again in 2024. The latest extension—which comes as Neste began supplying SAF out of its Los Angeles terminal earlier this month—will ensure a stable supply chain for Avfuel and its customers and allow it to expand its SAF footprint to additional markets and states.

AEG Fuels has added two members to its AEG Connect network: Corporate Air at Florida’s Vero Beach Regional Airport (KVRB) and Iceland Jet Center. Corporate Air, in operation for nearly 40 years, offers one of the largest ramps in Florida. A full-service FBO and maintenance provider, it offers a facility with 72,000 sq ft of hangar space—soon to be 112,000 sq ft.

Based at Keflavik International Airport, Iceland Air Group has more than eight decades of aviation experience and offers the largest FBO network in the island country with services at all its major airports. “Iceland Jet Center is AEG Connect’s first member FBO in Europe,” said Noel Siggery, AEG’s senior director of sales and supply for Europe.