Europe has the wealth and prosperity to support a business aviation market the size of America's. But does it have the space?
Warning somebody who's having a fantastic party that he will have a hangover in the morning may be done with good intentions, but it's a waste of time. Theoretically, it would be more useful to advise the reveller to plan for the future. For example, provided he still retains his most basic faculties, suggest he puts a large glass of water and some coffee by his bed for when he wakes up.
So what has this to do with the European Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition this year? Well, it has been a party at which almost everybody was on a high - and for good reason. There is a multitude of fantastic products, from re-born turboprops through very light jets and fractional ownership options all the way up to the customised airliners.
Business is booming. The reasons are easy to see. The world is richer than it has ever been. Europe is now the western world's biggest economic bloc - for the time being at least. There are more individuals and corporations with serious money to spend on what would have been considered an expensive option - even for the very rich - a few years ago. After all, for luxury air travel there was always the first or business class option with quality airlines.
But the world is not only richer, it has also changed since 11 September 2001. Bypassing the security hassle at major airports is something for which people will pay big bucks. They are often the same people for whom time is money. Today, small upsets in the weather, or security scares, at logjammed London Heathrow airport lead to multiple flight cancellations, and private charters in the area rocket every time it happens, according to a major locally-based business jet operator.
Meanwhile sophisticated high technology has matured and become more affordable, whether in the field of airframes, engines or integrated avionic systems. Airlines are now low-cost, and although travel with them is incredible value, any residual style they might once have had has taken a dive - including in the tourist class cabins of legacy carriers.
But in the brave new world of those who can afford it, Versace is customising private cabins and BMW the cockpits. Even fairly rich people can now buy and fly their own VLJ, fulfilling two personal dreams at once. EBACE this year and the National Business Aviation Association show last year were heady, glamorous, intoxicating places to be. America - where 70% of the world's business aviation operates - has long been used to seriously rich people being mind-blowingly extravagant, so this atmosphere feels normal there. But Europe? The feeling is relatively new here, but the gravy train is now pulling into the station.
So where's the hangover?
Europe is not America. Western Europe has far more people living in far less space. Its aviation infrastructure is under strain at almost all points: airports and air traffic management capacity are permanently close to capacity. Secondary airports are filling up, and many of them do not have the facilities to support high performance aircraft nor the navigation aids to ensure arrival or departure in Europe's fickle weather. European regulators, afraid of the loads placed on single pilot crews by the increasingly accurate navigational performance required in congested controlled airspace - especially under reduced vertical separation minima or in complex terminal areas - may yet seek to limit what VLJ owner/flyers can do on their own. Almost certainly their aircraft will be required - which currently they are not - to fit airborne collision avoidance systems. A single collision between a VLJ and a widebody airliner over Europe is so unthinkable that industry has to admit it could happen to ensure it does not.
Meanwhile operators hoping to avoid - or at least to ameliorate - security procedures for their pampered travellers, may yet be frustrated by security regulations that the European Union is mulling. If that were not enough, relative to American realpolitik, European governments are environmentally obsessive and may act to penalise high profile aviation polluters, as they are SUV owners on the ground.
Perhaps the industry should pack up and move to the Middle East where there is plenty of both money and space. But, unfortunately, not many people. India? Infrastructure is a problem. China? Likewise.
The industry has the technical, human, political and economic ingenuity to overcome all these potential obstacles, but only if it fully acknowledges their existence and works out the solutions. Wake up and drink the coffee.
Source: Flight International
