Next week's EBACE will set records, reflecting Europe's upbeat business aviation market. Hot topics at the event will include airport and transatlantic access
The curtain will rise next week on the fourth European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition (EBACE) in Geneva, Switzerland, the largest, dedicated business aviation gathering outside North America.
The unequivocal success of Europe's sole annual business aviation event is a welcome fillip to its co-hosts the European Business Aviation Association (EBAA) and the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA), which have fought hard to raise the profile and acceptance of business aviation in Europe.
"The key role of EBAA is to make sure that all those in positions of authority - rulemakers and politicians for example - are aware of exactly what business aviation is and how it fits into the overall aviation infrastructure," says Brian Humphries, EBAA chairman. Humphries will become to group's chief executive in October, succeeding Fernand Fran‡ois, who is retiring after 12 years.
Not only has EBAA successfully bent the ears of politicians and regulators alike, but demand for the annual convention has never been so great.
Last year, EBACE attracted over 5,900 visitors and 243 exhibitors, a 24% increase over the previous year's total of 4,824 and 219, respectively. This year the event looks set to smash records again with over 6,000 registered delegates expected. Exhibitors, including all major industry players, have taken larger booth spaces, filling the exhibition floor hall to capacity for the first time, forcing later arrivals on to a waiting list. The popularity of EBACE has made it a significant fixture in the world aerospace calendar at the expense of vast international gatherings, including the Farnborough and Paris air shows that are rapidly losing their appeal to the business aviation community.
Europe boasts the second-largest business aircraft fleet by continent, after North America. The number of registered aircraft is growing year on year, says Humphries. "We were stuck at around 2,000 aircraft in the late 1990s, but have seen a steady growth to about 2,380 today [1,470 jets and 910 turboprops], excluding offshore fleets." Last year alone around 100 aircraft joined the European fleet, despite the economic downturn across the region. Raytheon vice-president, international sales, Ted Farid says Europe is starting to grow again, with a particular emphasis on new products. This view is supported by other major airframers, and reinforced by engine manufacturer Honeywell Aerospace in its latest annual market forecast.
European fleet
While the five-year fleet replacement and expansion expectations fell in Europe last year by over 4% to 26%, Honeywell says new aircraft models continue to be important in stimulating customer interest. "Nearly 61% of business jets expected to be delivered to European operators in the next five years will be recently introduced, new, or derivative models," says Honeywell.
The use of business aircraft has undergone a significant increase. According to the EBAA, many business aircraft are routinely logging up to 1,000 annual flight hours, whereas less than five years ago 400 would have been the norm.
The expansion of the business aviation fleet could continue as the European Union steadily expands its borders. Ten new states joined the EU on 1 May, making it a club of 25, and new countries are expected to be added over the next few years. The EU is now the world's largest trading bloc, in terms of population, with 74 million new citizens taking the total to 455 million. Although aircraft sales and flight operations were already on the increase to many of the new members before enlargement, particularly to the Czech Republic and Hungary, business potential is enormous. The new member states are poorer than the established ones, with a combined GDP of less than 5% of the 15 long-standing EU members, but their economies are growing fast.
But while manufacturers and service providers push for new business, EBAA and its affiliates will continue their efforts to ease the regulatory and operating paths. All the key challenges faced by the industry will be hot topics of debate at next week's show.
Airport concern
Access remains one of the largest and most diverse areas of concern for European business aviation. While airport infrastructure has improved over the past five years with the development of secondary airports, access is still falling short of what is required by the community, particularly in the UK. "The fact is, business aviation is about point-to-point access and to achieve this we need access to whichever airport is best-suited to a particular mission," says Humphries. Business aviation airports like Farnborough and Northolt in south-east England, he argues, are not open all night, "so we need to be able to access other international airports, like London Heathrow, to which access can still be limited".
Access to European airspace has improved, however, with the implementation two years ago of the new 1,000ft (300m) reduced vertical separation minimum rule and the declining volume of airline traffic. But the EBAA is now concerned that European officials, in their quest to meet environmental targets, are seeking to remove the weight-based sliding scale used to calculate en route air traffic control charges and replace it with a system that would favour larger airliners at the expense of business aircraft. "Although nothing has happened yet," Humphries says, "we must remain vigilant."
Meanwhile, the battle for transatlantic access rages on. European and US tradebodies are calling for harmonisation between the respective regulatory authorities in their treatment of foreign operators. Under the present system, US authorities will permit operators access to US airspace six times before they are required to apply for a costly Foreign Carrier Authorisation. Although the European requirements stipulate 48h notice for non-European commercial operators, there is no ceiling on the number of applications.
EBAA argues the US system only appears to work for operators needing frequent or infrequent access to the USA. "We need to establish a level playing field to make it as easy as possible to fly between the USA and Europe," Humphries says.
The call for parity also extends to operation of fractional ownership aircraft globally. Central to this debate, which will be hotly contested at the convention, is the differing interpretation between the USA and Europe, the UK in particular, of a private aircraft operation versus a commercial one and, in particular, the role of the management company. The US Federal Aviation Administration regards the relationship between the fractional aircraft owner and its management company as private, whereas in Europe a management company is deemed commercial because it is being paid to operate the aircraft.
Regulation differences
Consequently, European fractionals are regulated under JAR Ops 1 as public transport, and US fractionals are governed under FAR Part 91 private flying rules and the newly created Subpart K, which incorporates some Part 135 commercial aviation operating requirements. European operators are calling for parity with their US counterparts "but eventually we should have a harmonised rule which covers the operation of fractionals globally", says Humphries.
Fractional supporters suggest a review of fractional ownership regulations could be contained in JAR Ops 2, the regulation intended for corporate business aircraft operators. However, after many years of consultation and debate JAR Ops 2 is now on hold while the European Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) makes the transition to the new European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). The industry, which had pinned so much on its introduction, is anxious that all the hard work may be in vain. "We don't want to lose momentum", Humphries says.
The JAA had begun to embrace the idea of a code of best practices drawn up by the International Business Aviation Council (IBAC) as the basis for compliance with JAR Ops 2 and the industry will continue to support its adoption, despite the future uncertainty of the regulation. Meanwhile, the introduction of EASA, the European Union's first single regulatory body, is largely welcomed by the EBAA as a great opportunity to end the confusion that results from having dozens of state-run authorities, with overlapping and sometimes conflicting rules.
The expectations for EASA are mirrored by the desire on the part of Europe's business aviation community to achieve realistic and workable security measures thatare being imposed by the European Commission to increase airport security across the region.
Humphries says that "while the EBAA is totally committed to high security standards" - for example, common security standards at fixed-base operations, separation between land- and airside and screening of access to aircraft - "we want to avoid a one-solution-fits-all policy, with corporate operators subject to measures devised for airlines". The EBAA has drawn up security recommendations and has been supporting the efforts of IBAC to remove, for example, the requirement for security-restricted areas at small airports, depending on the threat analysis, and allow these airports to establish independent security programmes.
Lively debate will also surround the implementation and implications of air traffic management requirements, including precision area navigation, elementary and advanced Mode S surveillance. So too the controversial and protracted delay of commercial single-engine instrument flight rules operations in Europe. The continued active participation by EBAA in the decision-making processes can only serve to raise the prominence of this vital aerospace sector.
KATE SARSFIELD / LONDON
Source: Flight International
