With AIN Media Group’s Aviation International News and its predecessor Aviation Convention News celebrating the company’s 50th year of continuous publication this year, AIN’s editorial staff is going back through the archives to bring readers some interesting events that were covered over the past half-century.
REWIND (September 2005): On August 11 European private equity group Permira said it would buy a majority stake in Zurich, Switzerland-based aviation services company Jet Aviation for an undisclosed amount. With a formal closing expected later this month, the sale will end the uncertainty about the fate of the Hirschmann-family-controlled enterprise since it was first put up for sale in 2002.
Founded in 1967 by entrepreneur Carl Hirshmann Sr., Jet Aviation grew into a worldwide corporate aviation services company with interests in aircraft maintenance, completions, management, and charter. After Hirshmann’s death in April 1995, family battles to control the company led to changes of management and headquarters. Until April 2003 Jet Aviation was led by son Thomas Hirshmann, who had moved the headquarters to West Palm Beach, Florida in the 1990s. Those headquarters returned to Zurich last summer, about a year after Thomas Hirschmann resigned as chairman and CEO.
FAST FORWARD: Permira would hold on to Jet Aviation for just three years before General Dynamics agreed to acquire it for approximately $2.25 billion as a stablemate to airframer Gulfstream Aerospace.
Jet Aviation, which evolved from a two-hangar maintenance facility in Basel, Switzerland, celebrates its 55th anniversary this year. It now operates more than 30 FBOs around the world. The worldwide staff of more than 4,000 offers MRO, completions, and aircraft charter and management services throughout Europe, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific, North America, and the Caribbean.
REWIND (July 1984): Piper has begun a mammoth packing job at its two Pennsylvania plants following the announcement by company president Max Bleck that all aircraft production activities will be transferred to its facilities in Vero Beach and Lakeland, Florida, beginning in August and to be completed by year’s end.
The consolidation affects a total Piper workforce of 850 in Pennsylvania. In Lock Haven, the company’s legendary headquarters where the aircraft manufacturer currently builds its Mojave, T-1040 Commuter, and Cheyenne IA and IIXL models, 650 workers will feel the impact of the move. Another 200 employees at its Quehanna metals fabrication plant will also be affected.
“This has been a very difficult decision; one made with deep regret,” said Robert Campion, chairman and president of Lear Siegler, the company that recently acquired Piper Aircraft. “In the final analysis, Piper’s losses for the past two years and the low level of general aviation sales really made the decision for us. We just could not continue to operate with so much unused capacity in our plants.”
FAST FORWARD: One of the “big three” from aviation’s golden age along with Beech and Cessna, Piper Aircraft, which celebrates its 85th anniversary this year, had called Lock Haven home for nearly a half-century before it ended its operations there and moved everything to the Sunshine State, where it had had a presence since 1957. After its migration, the airframer has continued its line of light aircraft, anchored by its flagship M600 single engine turboprop. In 2020 the company received FAA type-certification for its HALO safety system, making the M600/SLS the world’s first Garmin Autoland-equipped aircraft to be certified.
REWIND (October 2005): When Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, the business aviation community swung into action to help those affected by the natural disaster. Not long after the hurricane made landfall on the morning of August 29, many aircraft operators called the Red Cross and offered to airlift in supplies or do humanitarian transports. Their offers were rebuffed; instead the relief agency simply asked for donations.
Wanting to go beyond merely donating money, this close-knit community was determined to use its resources—aircraft or otherwise—to help those affected by the hurricane. Central to this effort was NBAA’s Air Mail list server, which became an important communications tool for facilitating airlift efforts.
The first messages offering help came on September 1, with several people opening their homes to evacuees. Within several hours members began asking how they could use their business aircraft to fly in supplies or evacuate refugees from the hardest-hit areas in Louisiana and Mississippi.
FAST FORWARD: One of the most destructive storms to strike the U.S., Category 5 Katrina claimed some 1,800 lives and caused more than $125 billion in damage. New Orleans was hit hard from the hurricane, with 80 percent of the city inundated by water due to the failures in its levee system. Widespread disruptions to transportation and communications were also seen throughout the region at the time.
New Orleans Lakefront Airport, on the shores of Lake Ponchartrain, suffered massive damage, which—in addition to the flooding to the city proper—caused the relocation of NBAA’s annual convention that had been scheduled to take place there in October. The organization pushed back the event by one month and rescheduled it in Orlando. New Orleans has not hosted the annual convention since.
REWIND(September 2009): In a major management shake-up at fractional provider NetJets, company founder, chairman, and CEO Richard Santulli on August 4 unexpectedly resigned, effective immediately. Credited as the “father of the fractional aircraft industry,” Santulli said he plans to remain with NetJets as a consultant for at least a year.
Santulli acquired Columbus, Ohio-based Executive Jet Aviation in 1986 as a platform upon which to launch NetJets, which initially struggled but grew substantially by the mid-1990s. Berkshire Hathaway chairman and billionaire Warren Buffet, a NetJets shareholder, was so impressed with Santulli’s NetJets that he bought the firm in 1998 for $725 million, and per Buffett’s custom kept the company management in place.
“After 25 years of working with the most talented group of people I could even have imagined, who helped build the premier aviation company in the world, I have decided to step down…to spend some more time with my young family and pursue other interests” Santulli said in a statement.
FAST FORWARD: Following his NetJets departure, Santulli did not remain idle for long. A year later he co-founded Dublin-based aircraft leasing company Milestone Aviation and remained there until 2016, resigning at the age of 72. At the time, the company had one of the world’s largest helicopter fleets, worth $3.7 billion and had orders and options for new aircraft worth $3.2 billion.
REWIND: (November 2006) I write this on October 15, my 60th birthday, wrote AIN columnist Joe Sharkey. I have tried not to be flippant about any aspect of this story. I am increasingly aware that my astonishing luck to be alive today coincided with the horrible fate of 154 people who plunged to their deaths on September 29. That was when seven people aboard a new Embraer Legacy 600, me among them, inexplicably survived a midair collision with a [Boeing] 737-800 at 37,000 feet above the Amazon rainforest.
FAST FORWARD: Joe Sharkey was a passenger on board what was anticipated to be a routine delivery flight for the brand-new super midsize jet to ExcelAire’s Ronkonoma, New York headquarters, where it would join the company’s charter fleet. In the collision, the Legacy lost its left winglet when it sliced into the doomed commercial jetliner’s wing and tail, causing the 737-800 to plummet into the jungle below.
The Legacy’s two-man crew, which was initially accused of intentionally turning off its transponder, managed to land the stricken business jet safely at a Brazilian air force base. The pilots were eventually allowed to return to the U.S. two months after the accident, amid parallel investigations by the U.S. NTSB and Brazil’s CENIPA. Their findings differed, with Brazilian authorities concluding the collision resulted from a combination of errors from air traffic controllers and the Legacy’s pilots, while the NTSB ruled the pilots of both airplanes acted properly and pointed to a variety of air traffic control errors.
Charles Alcock Remembers His Early Days at AIN Involving Bourbon and a Gun—AIN’s 50th Anniversary
As part of AIN’s 50th anniversary this year, we asked several key industry players to reflect on their time in the business aviation industry since 1972. In this month’s video, AIN’s own Charles Alcock reminisces about starting out with the publication at his first NBAA show in New Orleans. He also provides some tips on working as an aviation journalist.
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