Campo de Marte (SBMT) is São Paulo's first airport, Brazil's busiest GA airport, and the country's 10th busiest overall. Near subway lines and the city center, in a region once neglected but now growing more fashionable, the airport and especially the flight path have increasingly attracted the interest of real-estate developers. The governor of São Paulo has promised, or threatened, to close the airport to fixed-wing operations by 2020.
Essential for business, public safety, and medical emergency traffic, the airport has been seen as a future home for LABACE as well as a support base for UAM (urban air mobility).
The economic crisis of the last several years has depressed the airport's movements, down to 75,280 in 2017, as both business traffic and pilot training have slipped. Public airport infrastructure provider Infraero has sought to increase revenue, which of course means increased costs for airport users.
The Aeroclube de São Paulo recently had to return to Infraero two of the three hangars it occupied. At Gualter Helicopters, near the airport entrance, three of five buildings on the left were empty, and on the right, the 7,000-sq-m hangar constructed in 2012 by Global Aviation was returned to Infraero after Global was purchased by Icon Aviation, and will be used by the state police. Increased parking fees mean that the ramp formerly full of small private planes is now nearly empty.
Information about Brazil's aircraft fleet—what it includes, where it is, where and how much it's flying—makes the Civil Aviation Yearbook indispensable for anyone interested in the country's aviation market. The Brazilian Institute of Aviation/Instituto Brasileiro de Aviação will be launching the 2019 edition at LABACE 2019.
Yeb Market Intelligence, which does the heavy lifting involved in obtaining and processing data for the Yearbook, is offering a new subscription service called AbekoAir, offering data that goes beyond the Yearbook's, including obtaining, integrating, and interpreting data from a variety of sources.
Wrestling with raw data is not a task for the faint of heart. For example, ANAC's aircraft registry doesn't allow searching by owner or by state, and it can't be downloaded. The Yearbook data includes aircraft by state, type, category, and manufacturer. AbekoAir also adds data by airports and hours flown, derived from the data on aircraft movements in Brazil that Yeb has collected since 2010, including 100 percent of commercial movements, and 80 percent of general aviation movements. The data can also be viewed by aircraft model and airport. The AbekoAir platform permits consolidating data by such categories as operation by state, number of operations by aircraft type, category of operations such as instruction or air-taxi, and movements of principal operators.
Companies are busy putting the final touches on their exhibits at LABACE, the Latin American Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition, which opens tomorrow at São Paulo's Congonhas airport in Brazil. Several of last year's innovations will be kept and expanded, including a tented area for rotary-wing static display. Most of the major business and GA manufacturers will be displaying their aircraft.
Despite political turbulence, there are strong structural factors that have led Brazil to building the world's second-largest civil aviation fleet. The country and the aviation market have pockets of prosperity, such as agricultural producers whose products are priced in dollars and whose need for transportation from distant farms remains unchanged. Regulator ANAC, which aviation veterans have berated since its creation for its staff's inexperience (hardly surprising in a newly created agency), has shown greater maturity and sensitivity.
LABACE also faces inevitable changes. Moving the fair from Congonhas is discussed almost annually, both because of the cramped and crumbling facilities of the former VASP base and the annual contract negotiations with airport administrator Infraero. The real estate the fair used to occupy has now been leased out for retail development, so LABACE must move. ABAG had explored a five-year contract at Campo de Marte airport, closer to the city center than Congonhas, but farther from the fashionable business district, and probably requiring a change of hotels for exhibitors.
Bell and Embraer Want to Make the eVTOL Dream a Reality
Helicopter-loving São Paulo has been identified as a prime prospective market for new electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. Some would-be eVTOL aircraft developers and operators believe commercial operations could begin as soon as 2025, although it remains unclear whether any of the designs currently in development could achieve type certification by then.
Uber Elevate has been prominent among companies looking to commercialize eVTOL operations through its planned Uber Air ride-sharing program. As it determines which aircraft has the most potential to bring the concept to market, it has selected six prospective manufacturing partners: EmbraerX, Bell, Aurora Flight Sciences (owned by Boeing), Pipistrel Vertical Solutions, Karem Aircraft, and Jaunt Air Mobility.
Embraer and Bell are exhibiting at the 2019 LABACE show and may well take the opportunity to solicit Latin American market interest in their eVTOL plans.
The Brazilian airframer is pursuing its eVTOL ambitions through its EmbraerX future aerospace technology division. Since announcing plans in May 2018, the company has said almost nothing publicly about its proposed design and has not provided any details as to its performance, specifications, and timeline for service entry.
By contrast, Bell has gone public with its eVTOL plans. In January 2019, the U.S. company unveiled a full-scale example of its new Bell Nexus design. At this point, the design has space for four passengers plus a single pilot.
Training services provider and simulator manufacturer CAE is putting the spotlight on its Latin American business aviation and helicopter training footprint at LABACE 2019. Fittingly, the company’s South American training center (CAE São Paulo) is located in the host city for the continent’s largest annual business aviation gathering, close to Guarulhos International Airport.
Nick Leontidis, CAE’s Civil Aviation Training Solutions group president, cited the company’s recent initiative to bring training “directly to our customers’ locations” by transporting the CAE Simfinity suite of training programs from its Dallas and New Jersey training centers to clients for on-location training. “We launched this offering in Central and South America in fall 2018 with the Falcon 7X training program at CAE São Paulo, as well as Learjet 60 and various Gulfstream programs at CAE Mexico,” Leontidis said. “We plan to continue deploying additional programs throughout the year.”
CAE São Paulo also offers training on all Bombardier products including the Learjet 70/75, Challenger 350, Challenger 650, Global Vision (Global 5000/6000), and Global 7500.
The Canadian training specialist also hosts at the center a Phenom 100/300 training program in partnership with Embraer, and a helicopter training program joint venture with Brazil’s Lider. The latter features a Sikorsky S-92 and a Sikorsky S-76C++ simulator.
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