Urban air mobility (UAM) was on center stage yesterday at EBACE's Innovation Zone. Nearly a dozen vehicles that qualify under the UAM moniker are in active flight-testing today, according to session moderator Cyrus Sigari, co-founder of JetAviva. He added that Morgan Stanley predicts the UAM market will be worth $1.4 trillion by 2040.
“Growth in this market is exponential. We know of 120 programs in development,” Sigari said. At that point, he opened the session to other participants, including Andrew Stein, technical director at Embraer X, and Pascal Traverse, general manager for autonomy research at Airbus, among others.
“Embraer was one of the first to answer the challenge by Uber in 2017 for Uber Elevate,” said Stein. “Urban air mobility really fits the bill of what we are doing: finding new markets for Embraer. We want to bring airspace closer to the people. We can see people spending hours stuck in traffic and we are happy to share some of the solutions we are looking at for urban air mobility."
Meanwhile, Traverse said Airbus has been working on electric propulsion and UAM for some time. More recently, the company is working with Audi on porting technology from its research into an autonomous eVTOL machine. He noted that Airbus wants to control the whole process, from vehicle manufacture through deployment in the urban environment.
Satcom network operator and service provider Viasat received supplemental type certificate (STC) approval from the FAA for its Ka-band connectivity system, the Global Aero Terminal (GAT) 5510, for installation on super-midsize business jets. Calling it “the most compact business aviation internet system on the market,” Viasat said it is the first Ka-band system that can be installed on an airframe smaller than a large-cabin jet.
Delivering up to 16 Mbps speed to both cabin and cockpit, the GAT 5510 enables multi-site video conference calling, access to corporate VPN connections and e-mail, streaming bandwidth-intensive videos, and other services on the ground and in all flight phases.
At last year’s gathering in Geneva, Embraer signed on as the first OEM to offer the system as a line-fit option, and the Praetor 600 on static display this year is equipped with a GAT 5510. More than half of Embraer's Praetor 600 customers are choosing the option, Viasat said. “We have a dozen more models in the hopper” for certification, said Viasat director of global business development James Person. “So by the end of 2019 we’ll be on at least 12 more platforms,” spanning Bombardiers, Dassault Falcons, and Gulfstreams, as line-fit options or aftermarket installations.
Honda Aircraft is eying a ramp up in deliveries this year to 50 aircraft and Honda Aircraft president and CEO Michimasa Fujino is hopeful of increases beyond that in future years. Honda Aircraft delivered 37 aircraft in 2018, a year in which the in-service fleet of HondaJets surpassed the 100-aircraft total.
While seeing a fairly flat market in traditional business aviation niches, Fujino said Honda Aircraft’s underlying philosophy is to bring business aviation to new or relatively untapped markets. To that end, Fujino points out that some 25 percent of HondaJet customers are first-time buyers.
He pointed to Hawaii as an example. Many do not look at Hawaii as a strong market for light jets because of its geographical location, Fujino said. But he said the HondaJet is a good fit for customers who need to travel between islands. In fact, Honda Aircraft has sold a number of jets in the island-chain state, he said.
Fujino also singled out the Middle East as another untapped market for light jets. Traditionally, this region has been a market for large, ultra-long-range aircraft, but Honda Aircraft began a sales push at the end of the year, including having a HondaJet display at the Dubai Mall that received a strong reception.
Finishing touches are being applied to the new 14,000-sq-m Milan Malpensa Prime business and general aviation terminal as it is prepared for opening in July, coincident with the temporary closing of Milan Linate Airport on July 26.
The city’s main business aviation airport will shut for runway resurfacing that will take three months, requiring SEA Prime—which is owned by Milan airports operator SEA—to temporarily close its Linate FBO to fixed-wing operations, while hoping it will be able to continue rotary-wing operations, subject to local regulatory approval.
The new-build private FBO at Malpensa is situated between Terminals 1 and 2 and has its own apron of around 60,000 sq m, and a 5,000-sq-m hangar. It has five lounges, a conference center, limousine service, and concierge.
Speaking at EBACE 2019 on Wednesday, SEA Prime CEO Chiara Dorigotti said, “Malpensa has been in our minds for a while…it was approved one and a half years ago by the SEA board. The timing of the opening is a happy coincidence.”
Last year, Linate saw 26,000 business aviation movements, while Malpensa saw just 5,000. With the opening of Malpensa Prime, Dorigotti expects to see steady growth of business aviation traffic. In addition, Malpensa can take “any size of aircraft, all the way up to A380s,” and is open 24/7, according to Dorigotti.
Boeing introduced at EBACE 2019 a new BBJ services bundle and the offering’s first customer: Hong Kong-based charter management company Metrojet, which counts a BBJ in its fleet. The services bundle provides essential digital aviation tools for BBJ flight and maintenance crews, and includes 24/7 technical support, onboard performance tools, and maintenance planning data, tailored to meet specific customer needs.
“We are thrilled to provide this comprehensive services solution for Boeing Business Jet customers,” said William Ampofo, Boeing Global Services (BGS) v-p of Business & General Aviation. “Readiness is critical, and this solution creates a true one-stop shop for customers like Metrojet to get the support they need to keep their jets in peak condition.”
The five-year agreement is expected to streamline Metrojet’s procurement of BBJ products and services. “This is a digital solutions offering, so it combines our Jeppesen products, our Boeing digital products, and many off-the-shelf [OTS] products—electronic flight bags, their maintenance documents, and their task cards,” said BGS Business & GA managing director Samir Sahgal.
The new service bundle is expected to be especially beneficial to buyers of aftermarket BBJs, with no experience operating the platform. “Typically, it takes these aircraft several months to get operational,” said Sahgal. “We tried to make this a one-stop shop for customers, allowing us to get them operational quickly.”
Swiss business aircraft manufacturer Pilatus has reopened the order book for its PC-24. When it launched its “Super Versatile” jet in May 2014, it paused sales after taking orders for 84 aircraft. At that time, the company wanted to focus on certification and entry-into-service, not accumulating more backlog beyond two years of production. Since the PC-24’s service entry in February 2018, it has delivered 30 of the jets.
The Swiss aircraft manufacturer plans to deliver 40 PC-24s this year and will expand production to 50 aircraft next year. Base price of the twinjet is $10.7 million dollars, up from $8.9 million when it started taking orders in 2014.
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