Dassault Aviation today reported strong 2021 results, signaling a recovery from the pandemic, but the French aerospace group warned that performance this year could be dampened by the Russia-Ukraine war and strains on supply chains, particularly of raw materials such as titanium sourced from now heavily sanctioned Russia. The company’s revenues last year climbed to €7.23 billion ($8.1 billion) from €5.49 billion the previous year, while earnings more than doubled, to €527 million.
Eric Trappier, Dassault’s chairman and CEO, described 2021 as “an exceptional year,” with order intake totaling €12.1 billion, up from €3.46 billion in 2020. That backlog includes previously reported orders for 51 Falcon business jets—versus 15 in 2020—and 49 Rafale fighters.
The group expects to deliver 35 Falcons and 13 Rafales this year, compared with 30 Falcon shipments—five more aircraft than initially expected—and 25 Rafales in 2021.
Trappier told AIN that the war in Ukraine would affect the company’s business jet division. “We will face it, but it is not good news,” he said, stressing the company will strictly follow the sanctions—including export bans on aircraft and equipment—as defined by the European Union and other countries. He said he hoped to compensate the likely loss of orders to Russia and Russian oligarchs with new orders from other customers resulting from the business jet market recovery.
AINsight: Is There a Glass Ceiling Up There?
I would like to discuss the “glass ceiling” regarding the price of aircraft and other areas of the business aviation industry. Let’s start with the ever-escalating price of preowned aircraft: will we start to see these bump into a glass ceiling and begin to be held at a plateau or even pushed back down? And when this occurs, will we have a gentle landing or an abrupt change?
My hope is that we solve the escalating pricing with more supply gradually. This will result in stabilization of pricing without steep drop-offs in values and keep pricing levels from driving up one sale to the next. One can always say that other traditional causes for abrupt changes in values result from major geopolitical events or global meltdowns. I hate to remind you that we could now be in that geopolitical period.
The next big pricing conversation should be around the phenomenon of personnel shortages and added costs to recruit and retain. Jet fuel is another segment experiencing cost escalations. And yet another area of pricing concern revolves around the supply chain.
Are we as an industry trapped in this situation? To some degree yes, and yet hopefully the resiliency of our industry will allow us to manage challenges and associated costs. Attempting to control what we can might help us steer this ship to a more sustainable reality.
NBAA is working with the FAA to address what it perceives as shortcomings with the Privacy ICAO Address (PIA) program. While the FAA has traditionally linked an aircraft’s Mode S transponder (ICAO) code to the aircraft’s registration, under PIA operators can request to use alternate ICAO codes that are not published in the FAA’s publicly available aircraft registry. However, if that alternate code is broken, it can take 60 days for the FAA to assign a new code to the aircraft.
Arguing that such a lag is insufficient, NBAA and the FAA are working together to reduce the time involved to issue a new code if an operator’s code should become compromised.
“With the increasing availability and public awareness of technologies capable of reading and sharing aircraft transmissions, it’s clear the current timeframe of PIA code changes is not sufficient,” said Heidi Williams, NBAA’s senior director for air traffic services and infrastructure. Operators needing a new code less than 60 days following the issuance of their previous PIA code should contact the FAA.
NBAA, which has a webpage dedicated to the PIA program, is also collaborating with the FAA to expand the airspace available to aircraft using PIA codes, such as off the East and Gulf Coasts of the U.S. and airspace managed by other international air navigation service providers.
EASA has launched the European Information Sharing and Cooperation Platform on Conflict Zones as the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues. According to the agency, the initiative developed in cooperation with Osprey Flight Solutions “ensures that participating EASA member states and their operators have easy access to the best information when planning flights near or over areas of conflict.”
“In a single interface, the platform provides threat identification and monitoring, with associated alerting capability, as well as access to regulatory and advisory documents, and information relating to conflict zones,” said Osprey CEO Andrew Nicholson. “It is also a platform to facilitate industry collaboration, allowing all stakeholders to comment on, discuss, and provide further information on any of the documents available through the platform to enable all users to get the most out of the information provided.”
Luc Tytgat, EASA’s director for strategy and safety management, added, “Conflict zones are by their nature unpredictable. That means operators need the very best information available on time to make their risk assessments. EASA is confident that continuous, dynamic, comprehensive information sharing through this platform will increase situational awareness and enhance flight safety and security.”
UK-based ACC Aviation has opened its fourth U.S. office on the third anniversary of its operations in America. The new office in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, will also serve as the aviation services provider’s U.S. headquarters.
In addition to its offices in Atlanta, Houston, and New York City, the new Fort Lauderdale location will be overseen by ACC Aviation Americas president Jamie Harris. Harris said domestic U.S. flying, most notably business jet charter, was one of the first sectors to rebound following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. “Several sectors that cut down on their charter activity, including meetings and incentives and cruises, are now coming back,” said Harris. “Undoubtedly, the pandemic has helped charter, as companies continue to seek secure and reliable ways to travel.”
Leading ACC’s Fort Lauderdale office is Mike Jennings, who until summer 2020 worked at charter broker Chapman Freeborn. “We are delighted to be opening these new headquarters in Fort Lauderdale,” added ACC Aviation CEO Phil Mathews. “It’s an ideal location for the next stage of our U.S. expansion.” ACC Aviation also operates offices in the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, and Malaysia.
Participants in the newly-formed Eagle project stress that the growing threats to the leaded-avgas dependent fleet in the U.S. and abroad create a new urgency for widespread adoption of a drop-in replacement unleaded aviation gasoline by 2030.
Unveiled on February 23, Eagle will bring together government and industry to research and test such a replacement, develop an approval process, and establish a distribution path. During a webinar this week, general aviation leaders acknowledged that the announcement of the new program raised a number of questions—key among them was how it differed from past efforts.
But GAMA president and CEO Pete Bunce responded that the program builds on past efforts, including lessons learned, and broadens the scope to include participation from the American Petroleum Institute, American Association of Airports Executives, and, notably, the FAA. This will provide for more consistent funding, Bunce said.
AOPA president and CEO Mark Baker added that the program also reflects a renewed urgency in light of a looming EPA endangerment finding and local community efforts to ban leaded avgas. However, both Baker and Bunce expressed encouragement on efforts already underway, including GAMI's development of G100UL and Swift's progress on a replacement fuel.
“We haven’t found a silver bullet just yet,” Bunce explained, adding the replacement must be fully vetted and the process must have transparency to enable widespread adoption.
Modern Aviation and Sheltair’s previously agreed-upon sale of the latter’s FBO at Long Island Mac Arthur Airport (KISP) has been approved and concluded today with the handover of the facility. The deal, first announced in October, described Sheltair’s divestiture in the New York market, with Modern agreeing to purchase the Florida-based aviation real estate and service provider’s facilities at five area airports.
Sheltair said the move will allow it to concentrate its expansion efforts in its home state, as well as Georgia and Colorado where it also operates. Last month, the two companies consummated the transaction for the former Sheltair FBOs at New York City John F. Kennedy International and La Guardia airports, which are the lone private aircraft service providers at both locations.
The remaining two Long Island properties—at Republic Airport in Farmingdale and at Francis S. Gabreski Airport in Westhampton Beach—are expected to transact in the coming weeks. Modern has offered to retain all former Sheltair employees during the transition.
“We believe that increasing our presence in New York will allow us to better service our customers in the Northeast,” explained Modern CEO, Mark Carmen. “Adding a base at [KISP] is a major step in our strategy to continue growing our platform in attractive markets.”
Aircraft Technical Publishers (ATP) has a new CEO. The aviation software services and information provider announced yesterday it has appointed Norman Happ to the role, succeeding Rick Noble, who is retiring.
Happ has 25 years of experience as a leader in the software and software-as-a-service industries, most recently as CEO of EZ Texting, a business messaging platform that he led to “a significant acceleration” in growth and profitability, according to ATP. Before EZ Texting, Happ served in a variety of executive roles at Intuit in sales, customer support, and marketing, as well as at Evernote and H&R Block.
“ATP is incredibly fortunate to attract an executive with Norm’s experience and reputation as a team builder with a strong track record for growing high-performance companies,” said Noble.
Noble will remain a member of ATP's board of directors. Separately, Noble said in a LinkedIn post yesterday he informed ATP’s private equity owners, Accel-KKR and ParkerGale, in August that he planned to retire. Noble said in the post he didn’t realize the effect traveling nearly every week for 20 years had on his family until the Covid-19 pandemic. “Being able to work from home for the most part since March 2020 opened my eyes to what I was missing,” he wrote.
Props to you. If you thought the bent spoon magic trick was neat, wait until you see what corporate pilot Bill Rexer can do with his Beechcraft King Air 350’s propellers—with the assistance of a camera shutter setting that warps them, at least. He snapped this image while cruising along at FL350. Thanks for sharing your mind-bending photo with us, Bill!
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