Bombardier and Signature Aviation have signed a landmark memorandum of understanding that will cover several areas and provide benefits to their respective customer bases. Signature has agreed to provide dedicated concierge service at the airframer’s service centers in the U.S. and Europe, including Tucson, Arizona; Hartford, Connecticut; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Dallas; and Wichita, as well as at the UK’s London-Biggin Hill.
Signature interim CEO Tony Lefebvre said the service will emulate the welcome program in place at all the company’s locations. “It’s being the front-end customer touchpoint for Bombardier.” That will include taking care of the customer’s needs from aircraft induction to the maintenance center to getting them on another aircraft, or making transport and lodging arrangements for them in the area.
Secondly, Bombardier will now station mobile response teams, including vehicles, technicians, and spare parts at various Signature FBOs across the U.S. and in Europe. Jean-Christophe Gallagher, Bombardier’s executive v-p of services, support, and corporate strategy, told AIN, “They already have access to the airport, they already have hangars, space to put parts, we are really now going to be able to leverage the Signature infrastructure to continue that rapid expansion."
Lastly, Signature, currently the world’s largest FBO buyer of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), will become the exclusive provider of the renewable fuel at Bombardier’s production and service facilities around the world as supply becomes available.
Dubai-based Jetex recorded growth of more than 100 percent in traffic related to its U.S. trip-planning business in the first eight months of 2021 versus the same period in 2019, founder and CEO Adel Mardini told AIN ahead of NBAA-BACE 2021. He also expressed satisfaction that NBAA-BACE is finally taking place after the pandemic caused the show to be canceled last year, noting NBAA-BACE 2021 is one of the first major, in-person aviation events in the U.S. in almost two years.
According to Mardini, “We will certainly see sustained growth this year. We focus a lot on the Caribbean, Latin America, and Canada...In the Americas, summer is busy because of all the leisure destinations.”
Though Jetex does not operate an FBO in Miami, it does host its U.S. operations center there. It works closely with its FBO partners and offers a range of trip-planning services out of this office for travel within the U.S. and to the Caribbean and Latin America. The company intends to expand in North America by increasing capacity at the Miami center, where a team of more than 30 is based.
“We are looking to increase our footprint in the U.S. in terms of brand awareness, by promoting Jetex as a leading provider of fuel and trip support. We are also expanding our network in Latin America.”
FlightSafety, GE Partner on C-FOQA for Pilot Training
FlightSafety International will use actual flight data from GE Digital C-FOQA programs to enhance flight training for business aviation customers in a partnership launched this week at NBAA-BACE.
“This has been months in the works,” said FlightSafety president and CEO Brad Thress. The de-identified corporate-flight operations quality assurance (C-FOQA) data will not only benefit pilots who work for companies that participate in a C-FOQA program but other pilots flying non-participating aircraft of all types. For example, many business jet pilots will benefit from training that helps mitigate known problems at a particular airport, he explained.
Under the partnership, GE Digital will share insights derived from its analysis of C-FOQA data with FlightSafety, which will then apply those insights to training designed to mitigate the risks uncovered by the data.
The C-FOQA community includes more than 300 operators flying more than 1,000 aircraft. C-FOQA automatically processes flight data with a library of more than 200 events and 2,000 measurements “that monitor everything from simple aircraft limitation exceedances to highly advanced risk-based modeling,” GE noted.
“Actual flight data will allow us to tailor training to address safety threats before crews even experience them,” said Thress. “FlightSafety employs a risk-based approach to training, and partnering with GE Digital for their C-FOQA data will have incredible applications for us on approach stability, touch down point control, procedure compliance, and runway safety, among others.”
Following Wheels Up’s initial public offering in July, a primary focus for the private aviation membership company is improving its backend and customer-facing technology, Wheels Up executives said yesterday at NBAA-BACE 2021. “When I see the private aviation industry, it reminds me of what I saw when I joined Amazon in 2000: lack of technology, lack of customer-centricity, and this massive opportunity in what I call the marketplace where we can actually match demand with supply,” said recently promoted Wheels Up president Vinayak Hegde.
Specifically, Hegde explained that when he compares the Wheels Up app with apps from Amazon, Airbnb, and Groupon, “there’s a lot more we can do. If you make buying easier, if you provide price transparency, if you offer an amazing customer experience, more and more people will come and buy from us. And that’s what we’re striving for.”
Wheels Up members and customers will see changes to the app next year as the company “completely” revamps the back-end technology of the app. Hegde added that the company plans to improve the use of its back-office technology to achieve efficiencies in other parts of the company such as optimizing its flight operations and using the customer data it collects to improve retention and “increase lifetime value.”
Safer Training Through High-Tech Reality Replication
To be prepared for anomalies and emergencies, crews need to know the aircraft systems, avionics, flying characteristics, and emergency procedures before they jump into the simulator. With more than 70 years of training, FlightSafety brings as much realism into the classroom as possible using advanced-technology simulators, virtual reality and computer-assisted debriefing tools.
With demand for private jet travel at an all-time high, CitationPartners is implementing Phase II of its Citation Excel Eagle program that refurbishes Cessna Citation Excels and XLSs to like-new condition. Under Phase I, the company upgraded a half dozen former NetJets Excels to Citation Eagles, selling them directly to customers. Phase II will enable existing Excel and XLS owners to have the nose-to-tail refurbishment program applied to their own Excel/XLSs.
CitationPartners’ Russ Meyer, Jr. told AIN the company is moving ahead with this second phase in part because of the lack of availability of preowned Excel/XLSs. Demand was strong for Excel Eagles, the company learned once it announced the program in late February. CitationPartners has sold its 2021 allotment of six Excel Eagles—three have already been delivered—while inquiries for the refurbished jets continue to pour in.
Under the program, the 560XL undergoes an inspection at Textron Aviation’s Wichita Citation Service Center. Any squawks that turn up during the inspection requiring new parts or systems will be replaced up to $25,000.
The airplane will then move to Yingling Aviation, where the exterior will be repainted, the interior replaced, and Garmin G5000 avionics installed. The cost of the second-phase refurbishment is $1.49 million, or $1.39 million for customers who provide a letter of intent with a $25,000 fully refundable escrow deposit made before October 31.
CAE will expand its flight-training footprint in the U.S. with the start of construction on a new major pilot instruction facility in Las Vegas. Work on the new training center was announced today at NBAA-BACE, which is being held in Vegas this week. Slated to open in mid-2022, it will be CAE’s first training center on the West Coast.
The location was chosen as part of the Canadian flight training provider’s strategy to situate its centers in areas where its customers fly their aircraft, and it will be located at LogistiCenter at Sunset, a newly-built, 151,200-sq-ft building on the southeastern corner of Harry Reid International Airport. It is expected to eventually house eight full-flight business aircraft simulators for platforms including the Gulfstream G550 and G650, as well as the Bombardier Global 7500.
“This new training center is an important addition to our global network of centers and underscores our commitment to helping the business aviation industry build and grow a strong pipeline of pilots,” said Nick Leontidis, the Canadian company’s group president for civil aviation training solutions, adding that CAE has received a warm welcome from both the city and state. “We look forward to playing a key supportive role in Nevada’s aerospace and defense industry for many years to come.”
Business jet aircraft engines are flying this year at 110 percent of what were record 2019, pre-pandemic levels, according to Melvin Heard, GE Aviation's general manager for business aviation. “It’s been a great recovery for the business aviation side of the business as we come out of the Covid environment,” he said.
Heard noted that two relatively new GE engines—Passport and HF120, the latter jointly developed with Honda—were performing well as more business aircraft took to the skies more frequently. More than 140 of GE’s Passport engines have been installed on Bombardier’s Global 7500 long-range business jets and those are performing “beyond expectations” in terms of specific fuel consumption and reliability, he said.
In more than 36,000 hours of operation, not one Passport had been shut down in flight due to an operational issue or been the cause of a rejected takeoff, Heard added. Approximately 70 percent of those engines are enrolled in GE’s OnPoint service program. Production of the Passport moved from GE’s Strother, Kansas location to Lafayette, Indiana, last October. More than 100 production engines have been completed at Lafayette since the move.
Similarly, Heard said the 400 GE Honda Aero Engines HF120s installed on HondaJets are performing well. The company is also working with the FAA to extend that engine’s approved time between overhaul from the current 2,750 hours to 3,500 hours by early next year.
EMS Helicopters Have Twice the Average Fatal Accident Rate
Helicopter air ambulances have twice the fatal accident rate compared with all other forms of aviation per 100,000 flight hours. That’s the conclusion of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University researchers Richard Simonson, a Ph.D. candidate, and faculty mentors Joseph Keebler and Alex Chaparro. The three worked to identify the specific helicopter air ambulance crash scenarios associated with an increased likelihood of fatalities. The research, published by the Journal Aviation Medicine and Human Performance, looked at accident records over a 35-year period (1983-2018) and found that flying at night, under instrument flight rules (IFR), and post-crash fires are all associated with a higher likelihood of fatalities.
The research suggests that it may be time to reevaluate helicopter air ambulance safety, given that helicopter air ambulances flew less than 25,000 hours in 1980 and flew nearly 600,000 in 2017. “Safety issues for discussion might include the single-pilot situation, as well as how to make fuel systems more fire-resistant,” said Keebler, associate professor of human factors at Embry-Riddle.
Using statistical analysis, the researchers found that a helicopter that crashes while flying at night is 3.06 times more likely to suffer a fatality, compared with helicopters flying in the daytime. Medical helicopter pilots flying under IFR are 7.54 times more likely to be involved in a fatal accident, and a post-crash fire is 18.73 times more likely to result in a fatality.
Mente Group named Chris Prokopeas v-p of marketing based in Dallas. Most recently chief marketing officer for Gesa Credit Union, Prokopeas has more than 25 years of experience across a range of industries, including for DFW International Airport, Dickies, Capital One, Dean Foods, and Kraft Foods.
Aero Asset hired Vincent Dulbecco to serve as senior sales director and François Millian as senior director of mission-critical markets. Dulbecco, who began his aviation career in the French Gendarmerie Air Support Unit in 1998, spent 13 years in different roles with Leonardo Helicopters, from flight test engineering to new helicopter sales manager for Africa and manager of the preowned civil and military helicopter sales division. Millian, who most recently was head of operations for the French-based HEMS operator SAF Helicopters, has served in the helicopter industry since 1999, also including as a French Army pilot, flight instructor, and training captain.
C&L Aviation Services appointed David Kay as regional sales manager of corporate MRO for the Midwestern U.S., Kay, has two decades of corporate aviation experience, previously as aircraft sales director for Exclusive Aircraft Sales.
Western Aircraft named Shannon Edick regional sales manager for Pilatus Aircraft maintenance sales. Edick, formerly an accounts payable specialist for Xtra Airways, joined Western Aircraft in 2015 and has a range of roles, from work order coordinator and planner to an MRO quoter.
Brian Sinkule was named CFO of King Aerospace Companies. Most recently CFO of L3Harris Technologies Greenville division, Sinkule has a 30-year financial background primarily in areas focused on intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) integration and missionization programs along with VVIP interior and aircraft services programs.
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