Europe has pledged not to neglect business and general aviation as it has done in the past, said the European Commission's transport director Daniel Calleja as the opening session of this year's EBACE in Geneva, Switzerland. As set out in its paper earlier this year, he promised, the sector will be fully integrated into European aviation policy.
This policy, Calleja emphasised, was endorsed by the European Union's transport ministers last month, recognising the sector's massive contribution to Europe's business environment, including the fact that European business and general aviation manufacturers sold euro 2 billion ($3.1 billion) worth of equipment last year.
Emissions and the environment are elements that the industry can, and must, take seriously, insisted Calleja, and the EU sees progress on this front in the form of a three-pronged process involving the efficiencies that will be generated by the Single European Sky, advances in technology and an emissions trading scheme.
Calleja sees giant efficiency advances, particularly for business and general aviation, under the Single European Sky SESAR development project, with global navigation satellite system-guided approaches allowing greater all-weather access to secondary and tertiary airfields, bringing the kind of flexibility to business travel that only the general aviation sector can offer.
Global interoperability and international accessibility must be improved, Calleja insisted, and in this he was backed fully by the National Business Aircraft Association president Ed Bolen, who conceded the USA has a long way to go in this respect, with its present requirement for up to 30 days' notice to clear FAR Part 135-type charters into the country - far in excess of what Europe requires for eastbound flights.
Source: Flight International
