In response to an 86 percent increase in the number of furry travelers over the past two years at VistaJet, the global charter operator is building upon its VistaPet program with enhanced training of its cabin crew. The company said its more than 200 cabin attendants have undergone training in providing basic emergency and behavioral care for the companions to the company’s human clients, one in four of whom now travel with their winged and four-legged pets.
“The fast increase in [the number of] pet adoptions is paired with a habit of having pets as daily companions,” said Matteo Atti, VistaJet executive v-p of marketing and innovation. “Rabbits are a recent new breed of pet flown by VistaJet, and while dogs continue to make up the majority of animal passengers, the number of cats spiked 357 percent from 2019 to 2020.”
The enhanced cabin crew training includes performing pet CPR procedures, recognizing signs of and addressing choking, checking vital signs, identifying indications of ingested or topical poisoning, and understanding pet behaviors through reading body language.
The enhanced training for cabin crew adds to the services of the VistaPet program, which also includes a four-week-long preflight training course for dogs to help them adjust to air travel; inflight meals designed with a veterinarian; sleep mats for pets; inflight amenity kits that include treats and water-free shampoo; and rope toys.
Part 91 flight department leaders aren’t just aviation experts, they’re also business leaders. After all, they are running a business within a business. A big part of managing an in-house aviation organization is being in alignment with where the company's going.
“It’s critical that you’re able to understand where the industry is, so you can answer that question the shareholders are inevitably going to ask,” said Sean Lee, global vice president for The Coca-Cola Company. “You don’t get that from an out-of-house solution. Being proactive versus reactive makes for a very strong business case.”
Sean shared a number of examples where aviation leaders are being proactive in managing their in-house organizations and driving value, such as taking leadership positions on sustainable aviation fuel, aircraft financing, drones, and hybrid aviation models.
Just like the “No Plane, No Gain” campaign, I think we need to have the “Aviation Directors Offer Aviation Solutions” campaign. It could promote the benefits of having an in-house department.
All of this begs the question, as a corporation, why would you not have an in-house flight department? During the pandemic, a flight department executive told me: “Sheryl, when I took over aviation, I thought maybe I would outsource it. But the pandemic has confirmed for me that I never want to NOT be in control of aviation. Our planes allowed us to keep our strategic growth on track.”
In response to the Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) Grand Challenge issued last week by the U.S. government, the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative (CAAFI) issued a statement applauding the government’s recognition of the role that SAF will play in helping the aviation industry meet its decarbonization ambitions. CAAFI has been one of the major drivers in furthering awareness about the use of sustainable fuels.
“SAF has been in development since 2006 and has been in commercial use since 2016, but SAF usage has remained very modest as a result of insufficiently coordinated efforts to address risk, cost competition with other renewable uses, and overall scale-up,” it noted.
Among the goals in the challenge issued by the SAF Interagency Working Group (SAF IWG), which includes the Departments of Energy, Transportation, and Agriculture, is meeting a goal of supplying sufficient SAF to meet 100 percent of aviation fuel demand by 2050.
CAAFI’s leadership has committed to working with the SAF IWG over the next six months to develop a roadmap and recommendations to meet that goal.
“CAAFI believes this will accelerate the ramp-up of SAF production from a very broad range of sustainable feedstocks and conversion processes through supported research, development, demonstration, and deployment efforts, as well as implementation of enabling policy initiatives,” the organization said.
AviationManuals Updates Free Emergency Response Form
AviationManuals has released a “significant update” to its emergency response form that is structured to allow for a more seamless collection of information in an accident or injury or threat situation. The form’s configuration has been redesigned to follow the order in which emergency information is received.
Further, the form guides users to correctly record and account for all the necessary details. It also has been expanded to be used by FBOs and drone operations, as well as business aviation entities.
“Your ability to quickly and accurately respond to an emergency is all dependent on the initial information you receive and how you manage it,” said AviationManuals CEO Mark Baier. “The updates we have made help with emergencies that can occur both on the ground and in the air. At AviationManuals, our mantra is ‘safety is in the small stuff’ as we are committed to the continued update and improvement of our procedures and safety services.”
A PDF version of the form is available for free at the company’s website.
IAWA Study FInds Aviation Leadership Gender Gap Remains
Nearly 60 percent of women who have held aviation leadership positions have considered leaving the industry, underscoring a lack of progress in addressing the gender gap at high-level roles, according to a new study from consulting firm Oliver Wyman and the International Aviation Womens Association (IAWA).
“Women are more likely to be pushed out because of negative experiences, while men who leave the industry are more often pulled away by the lure of better opportunities,” the organizations added.
The study involved surveys of 450 aviation professionals holding front-line, mid-level, and senior leadership positions (75 percent of them women), and the organizations supplemented the results with interviews to gain a deeper understanding of why the gender gap has not improved and what could be done to address it.
The survey found that women took longer to reach leadership roles than their peers in general. In addition, the survey further indicated that men believe the companies are doing a good job at offering effective and accessible programs to promote gender equity, while women do not find these programs as easy to access or effective.
The study identified three major areas that could help address the gender gap, including escalating culture change at the top, redesigning efforts to provide a better balance, and expanding sponsorship programs.
Business aviation spend management platform MySky this week introduced a predictive feature called Quote that it says will rapidly generate accurate pricing for charter flights. According to the company, the MySky Quote feature will give flight costs to charter operators and their clients that are accurate more than 96 percent of the time. It says that estimates for each leg of a charter trip will be available in less than 10 seconds.
The Quote system assesses all costs, such as overflight air traffic control fees, fuel purchases, ground handling, aircraft parking, hotels, crew per diems, ground transportation, maintenance reserves, and catering. It can also project the profit margin the aircraft owner or operator will get from the trip to help them determine whether a booking is worthwhile.
“The system does in 20 seconds what it would take [a human] three hours to do by collecting all the separate costs, and using averages can be a dangerous game,” MySky co-founder and global strategy director Christopher Marich explained. He said that due in part to the excessive workload associated with manually preparing charter flight quotes, operators and brokers are currently converting just over 1 percent of charter requests into sales.
The price for using MySky Quote is based on a monthly flat-rate fee of €90 ($106), which includes 100 flight requests. Above that amount, users are charged €1 per transaction.
The French Ministry for the Armed Forces has extended by seven years an operational support contract with Daher for the military's Daher TBM 700 turboprop singles. The contract covers a fleet of 26 TBM aircraft: 23 TBM 700As and three 700Bs based in mainland France for military air mobility and training missions.
France's ministry uses the Tarbes, France-based airframer for liaison and training missions, as well as services for aircraft and helicopter maintenance and logistics. Fifteen of the TBMs are used by the French Air and Space Force, eight for the country’s army, and three for the DGA defense procurement agency’s flight-test department. Daher added that the 84-month contract renewal is for an expected average activity of 10,900 flight hours annually with the French military’s TBM fleet.
“The French Ministry for the Armed Forces is a demanding client that always has pushed us towards excellence, especially in challenging times,” said Daher Aircraft Division senior v-p Nicolas Chabbert. “Recently, our teams were mobilized to meet needs of the French armed forces, including the Gendarmerie, in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Major Renovation Project at KORD Finally Wraps
Officials in Chicago are celebrating the conclusion of a 16-year, $6 billion modernization program at O’Hare International Airport (KORD), one of the world’s busiest gateways. Under the O’Hare modernization program, the airport’s outdated runway system was reconfigured into a series of parallel runways running east-west to increase capacity. Since the beginning of the program, system-impact delays have been slashed by 64 percent, according to the Chicago Department of Aviation, which operates the airport.
“Thanks to this project, which features eight completed runways, we will be able to reduce delays and increase O’Hare’s efficiency, allowing us to build on the airport’s reputation as one of the best in the country,” said Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot.
The expansive project—of which the final step involved the lengthening of Runway 9R-27L by 3,290 feet to 11,260 feet—included the extension of Runway 10L/28R to 13,000 feet and construction of four new runways: 9C/27C (11,245 feet), 10C/28C (10,800 feet), 9L/27R (7,500 feet), and 10R/28L (7,500 feet). In addition, three crosswind runways—14L/32R, 14R/32L, and 18/32—were decommissioned.
“This overhaul has been years and roughly $2.5 billion federal dollars in the making,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois). “By investing in increased gateway capacity, updated screening technology, and reduced airfield congestion, the O’Hare modernization program will help secure Chicago’s status as one of the most important transportation hubs in the world.”
Photo of the Week
Coming Full Circle. Seth Johansen was headed east, descending into Nassau as the sun was setting behind him, when he caught a glimpse of a rainbow. “At first I saw a full-circle rainbow but as I got closer to the cloud bank, I noticed a silhouette of my King Air right in the middle of the full-circle rainbow,” he said. “It was really cool seeing it.” We agree. Thanks for sharing Seth!
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