Business Aviation Magazine Issue 29 - Spring 2024

Continuous Innovation

JORGE COLINDRES

EXEC. CHAIRMAN & CEO

AVIATION REGISTRY GROUP OF COMPANIES

New for old, anyone for an upgrade?

As business aviation heads into this year’s EBACE, there is all the excitement that you would expect from the sector’s biggest (or second biggest, depending on your perspective) annual show.

The excitement is doubtless heightened by the fact that we have several new long range jets in the wings, all promising to deliver ranges north of 7000 nm. They are also looking to push beyond Mach 0.9. True, Dassault’s Falcon 10X isn’t scheduled for delivery until 2027, but the specs are exceedingly tasty.

Bombardier’s Global 7500 and 8000 are on the way, with deliveries of the former expected soon, while deliveries of the 8000 are still said to be slated for some time in 2025, with a promised range of 8000 nmi.

Gulfstream’s G700 and G800 are also heading towards certification (yes, we’ve heard this before, but this time it’s happening.

Unfortunately, neither Gulfstream nor Bombardier will be exhibiting at EBACE this year, but that shouldn’t noticeably dampen the buzz around the event.

The US economy is doing tremendously well and seems on course to do even better as 2024 progresses. The fact that we are in a Presidential election year in the USA does not seem to have cast any perceptible chill over the markets.

Admittedly, the signs are that that the charter market is tougher than it has been, but aircraft pricing is still on the high side, which speaks to continuing reasonable levels of demand.

The underlying trends, so far as they are discernible, seem to indicate that the market is ‘normalising’ after the heated surge that characterised the exit from the restrictions of the pandemic. 2024 still shows every sign of being a great year for many in the sector.

As always, BAM is holding our traditional EBACE Networking Party. It will be held on Wednesday 29th May, at the Optimhall, Geneva Event Space, Chemin de la Gravière 4, CH-1227 Acacias (GE), from 8pm till 2am. The event is by invitation only, so if you haven’t yet got your invites please get in touch with Max or Roger.

Our heartfelt thanks, as always, to our sponsors, who make these great networking events possible and memorable. We look forward to welcoming all our friends and supporters once again.

ANTHONY HARRINGTON

Carry-on Beds

Gary Bosstick, President, JetBed, on the breakthrough in Carry-on beds for jets

72 Innovation never stops

Richard Giles, Aerospace Global Technical Service Manager at SherwinWilliams Aerospace Coatings, on the need for continuous innovation

Jim

John

Andy

Chadi

Top chef Jamie Gibson, Founder and CEO of Flightess LLC, on launching her own business

Jerome Ferasin, Chief Sales and Strategy Officer at AviaVIP, on their extensive European network

Weylan Arnold, owner and President of City Plating, on transforming business jets

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Jorge Colindres, Exec. Chairman & CEO of Aviation Registry Group of Companies, talks to Anthony Harrington about the 30 year history and its pioneering approach to the provision of services

AH: 2025 will be the 30th Anniversary of the founding of the Registry of Aruba: Jorge, what are your thoughts as you look back over that period?

JC: It’s incredible how quickly almost thirty years have passed; it always feels as though it was just yesterday. Looking back, witnessing the evolution of The Registry and the Department of Civil Aviation of Aruba feels deeply rewarding. Together, we’ve matured and continue to strive to pioneer new concepts and provide alternatives with extraordinary aviation regulatory services, always adhering to the highest safety oversight standards that help us maintain our U.S. FAA Category-1 rating and uphold our outstanding reputation among other jurisdictions.

AH: Let’s talk a little about how the number of aircraft registered has grown and at the various places that they come from.

JC: As you can imagine, after decades of running the Registry of Aruba and with twelve years as Executive Chairman of San Marino Aircraft Registry, we have registered a great number of aircraft. I can only speculate that it’s in the thousands. Although our jurisdictions are small, the credibility we’ve established with our clients has enabled us to grow exponentially because of our distinctive approach. We nurture business relationships and our strategy is well-praised and well- received in the industry, especially since our clientele comes from every corner of the world.

“ After decades of running the Registry of Aruba and with twelve years as Executive Chairman of San Marino Aircraft Registry, we have registered a great number of aircraft. I can only speculate that it’s in the thousands. Although our jurisdictions are small, the credibility we’ve established with our clients has enabled us to g row exp onentially.”

AH: You have pioneered the concept of public-private partnerships for aircraft registries. What are the greatest developments that the system has achieved?

JC: Bureaucracy is an inherently ineffective system. This has paved the way for innovative minds to simplify processes and to seek alternative methods of administering aviation regulatory requirements. This has led to the formation of strategic alliances between government bodies and private entities aimed at creating a regulatory framework that is respected, functioning, proactive, and offers guidance to our operators, while being in compliance with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards.

Because of this business model, smaller jurisdictions benefit from achieving exceptional regulatory standards that help aircraft owners and operators to conduct their operations with efficiency, maximising the use of the resources. The model allows us to expedite the registration and certification process to free up our clients’ most valuable resource– time.

It is perhaps egotistic to say, but one of my greatest achievements I believe, is the in-house teams that we have strategically assembled to operate The Registries on a daily basis.

Without these teams and their experience, our clients and partners would not be able to benefit from the dedication and innovation that our Registries bring to all their operations.

Respect and recognition is something that we truly value and appreciate, especially when it comes from highly regulated authorities. This has been demonstrated by the way both registries have achieved U.S. FAA Category-1 rating and the highest ICAO standards, despite being smaller jurisdictions.

The regulatory system that we have created around the venues is strong, credible, and efficient, for us to maintain and observe the highest safety oversight regulatory requirements to benefit all our aircraft owners and operators. They know that their asset will be well-preserved, well-regulated, and well-serviced and that we offer an unparalleled experience.

Looking back, we developed the Registry’s first air-operating certification program for operators, with COMLUX being our launching client. Now, we have successfully certified large numbers of operators. I could continue on and on about the many achievements that we’ve accomplished.

“ One of my greatest achievements I believe, is the in-house teams that we have strategically assembled to operate The Registries on a daily basis.”

AH: How do you feel about having the NY best-selling author, Frederick Forsyth featuring The Registry of Aruba in his fiction novel AVENGER?

JC: It’s a pleasure for me to know that what we’ve developed has not only won the respect of the aviation industry but we are now featured in a fiction novel. This shows that creativity, good partnership, and consistency, not only reaches the heights as a direct benefit for the industry, but indirectly, creates worldwide fascination. I truly believe that this is what Mr. Forsyth saw in his research that led to the Registry featuring in his novel- AVENGER.

“ When it comes to espionage, international intrigue, and suspense, Frederick Forsyth is a master.” - The Washington Post

AH: You must have been proud when you learned that you were inducted into the Honor Wall of the Smithsonian Museum of Air and Space in Washington, DC- can you tell us more about this?

JC: Well, I guess you can say I’m a museum piece now! I’ve done so many things in so many ways and enjoyed so many friends that I guess the idea of pioneering and developing the

first privately managed offshore aircraft registry is renowned as a groundbreaking idea. It’s a privilege to be named in the Honor Wall. Humbleness, dedication, and honesty are values that characterize me, and I’m truly grateful for the induction.

AH: How did you feel when you were Knighted by the Captain Regents of The Serene Republic of San Marino?

JC: Receiving the knighthood from the Captain Regents of the Republic of San Marino was a tremendous honor and a moment of great significance for me and my family. It signified a recognition and appreciation for my contributions to the country’s aviation industry. It filled me with a sense of pride, accomplishment, and gratitude towards the people of the Republic of San Marino for bestowing this prestigious title upon me.

AH: I understand that you are in the process of establishing other registries, can we talk about these?

JC: I am? LOL, yes of course, we are, and we always will be. The business of creating, developing and operating premiere aircraft registries is our core business and is what we do best. The Registries are also the inheritance for the next generation of the Colindres. You well know that they are not only following my footsteps, but are excelling in all that I’ve dreamed of. This idea of passing the torch is something I share with my mentor- Wayne Hilmer Sr., the former chairman of Omni Jet Floor Trading, to whom I am so grateful for the free life lessons and adventures.

Cavaliere Jorge Colindres in Dubai with his son, David, President of San Marino Aircraft Registry

AH: As a related question, where do you see the future? Can you talk about ongoing discussions to form additional partnerships like these?

JC: My father told me to always remember that people do business with people they like. Developing and creating new aircraft registries and partnerships, not only involves the ability to understand the aviation industry, its future enhancements, and needs, but also the personal connections. These connections allow us to continue exploring opportunities in various jurisdictions that we feel are suitable for our business model. Recently, we have executed an exclusive agreement with His Majesty’s Government of Gibraltar, to together develop and operate the Gibraltar Aircraft Registry. This will be our third partnership which we’re hopeful to launch soon.

“ Recently, we have executed an exclusive agreement with His Majesty’s Government of Gibraltar, to together develop and operate the Gibraltar Aircraft Registry.”

AH: What about your global network of inspectors and your concept of providing a fast, effi cient service for clients at their sites?

JC: Our global network of Designated Inspectors is a

testament to our commitment to providing fast and efficient service to our clients. Along with the inspectors of the DCA and CAA, they help ensure that our clients receive timely solutions without the delays and logistical challenges.

AH: The Registry of Aruba has established two scholarships with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU): one allocated for the Daytona campus and the other for the Singapore Worldwide campus. Could you elaborate on the partnership between TROA and ERAU, highlighting how these scholarships enhance educational opportunities in aviation and benefit aspiring students?

JC: Wayne Hilmer, my mentor, said to me: “Chief, I’ll offer you this opportunity to create an innovative alternative for the aviation industry. If you do well, promise me that you will share your success with others.”

This has been something that I always remember. It set me free to be innovative and to create something special. So, this inspired my family’s idea to establish a partnership with ERAU and to offer two scholarships for qualified students seeking financial aid. Today, we have two recipients of the scholarship, one who is due to graduate this Spring semester, along with a new recipient from the Singapore campus. We’re in the process of strengthening our partnership with ERAU and will offer additional scholarship opportunities from The Registry of Aruba and San Marino Aircraft Registry. |BAM

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The winning team

Greg Wydmanski, owner and founder, 77Jets, talks to Anthony Harrington about success in the charter business

AH: Greg, let’s talk about the events that led to the founding of your new company, 77Jets.

GW: Up until the end of October last year, and for the three and a half years before that, we ran an outsourced charter sales team for a business jets management company based in Vienna. We ourselves are based in Warsaw, Poland.

We were highly successful, and the aircraft we managed for the company and its owners, listed right at the top of the league tables for the number of charter hours flown in a year.

Then towards October last year, the company had a change at the top and the new CEO wanted us to move to Vienna,

where the company was based. I and my four team members were very settled in Warsaw, with houses, kids at school and so on. Plus I saw no reason, given the success we had achieved for the company operating remotely, why we should be asked to uproot everything and move to Vienna.

However, the new CEO was adamant and said they could not continue the relationship with us on the present basis. We ended the relationship and since then 77Jets works fully independently.

We now have two aircraft, a CJ2 and a G5, that we have the exclusive right to charter for the owners. By May, we expect

GREG WYDMANSKI

In business aviation since 2012. Aviation entrepreneur, leader, manager. Trust, commitment, engagement, belief, responsibility, empathy, positive thinking and energy, enjoyment, recognitionthese are values that help me gain more from life every day at work, at home.

Leading people is a huge responsibility. Not only for the result I promised to deliver but for the people that believed in my vision, my strategy, my way.

Beyond connectivity

to have two more, and by the end of 2024, I anticipate that we will be selling charter for some seven aircraft in all.

AH: Being independent, starting a new business is always both exciting and stressful. How has it been for you?

GW: As you say, it is both of those things. However, we are very confident that the approach that we have pioneered to selling aircraft charter is the best you will find in the industry. Our track record in charter sales speaks for itself. 77Jets is a group of friends, aviation professionals, working together for 12 years and because we share the same values, we have the same understanding of doing business and we believe that charter sales can be done better. Viola Glodowska, Olha Nesterenko, Mat Kausa and Karol Gramala make 77Jets absolutely unique!

AH: You started your career in banking, dealing with high net worth individuals. How did that transition into business aviation?

GW: In 2000, I began selling financial services to HNWIs for Citibank and from 2008 for HSBC in Poland. It was

enjoyable and I built up a network of HNWI contacts as a result. Then HSBC decided to close in Poland so I needed something else. One of my contacts was responsible for sales and service in a business aviation company. They asked me to help and I found myself, almost by accident, working in charter sales.

What I found, coming from outside, was that the charter sales operations I came into contact with, showed very little initiative or drive. It was all about selling reactively. You put an aircraft on Avinode and waited for calls from brokers, which either came or didn’t.

This is not the most efficient way to sell charter. If you take this reactive approach and you do not get a sale, you start thinking the market is slow, when the market might be going really well. The problem is not the market. The problem is the reactive approach to selling.

Sales do not make themselves. That is a fallacy. For sure, you need the aircraft to be on Avinode, but that is the basic

VIOLA GLODOWSKA

In business aviation since 2008. Goal driven, motivated, and passionate of sales. Has gone through so many challenges in aviation that not much can surprise her anymore. It still does, though.

Privately, loves traveling and discovering different corners of the world. Enthusiast of healthy and eco-friendly lifestyle.

MAT KAUSA

In business aviation since 2014. Sales Manager with huge commitment, flexibility, creative problem solving, strongly focused on long term partner relationships and huge sales and key account management of Private Jet business experience.

“I truly believe that key factor of success on a demanding and dynamic business aviation market is commitment, engagement and attention to details.”

OLHA NESTERENKO

Business aviation has been a passion of my life since 2017. I love being responsible for building and managing clientele. In my professional career, I believe in communication, trust, respect, resilience, and improvement.

Working in the private jet industry helped me to spread my wings and widen my horizons.

KAROL GRAMALA

In aviation industry for nearly 20 years. Started in charter sales 9 years ago. I am passionate about aviation and all aspects of charter business.

Being honest, creative and open towards the client is the key in my professional work.

starting point. What you need the skill to do, is to ensure that the aircraft is listed on the first page on Avinode that the broker looks at. If you are on page 2 and deeper, you are not going to get a request to quote.

AH: As a matter of interest, do you have any visibility on how charter sales have gone for your former company since your departure?

GW: I had a few owners phone me up and say, Greg, what is happening? For four months now my aircraft has not had a booking! So, that is not such a good sign.

AH: How difficult is it to convince operators to take you on as an outsourced charter sales arm?

GW: Obviously it is a big decision for them to make, particularly if they have a significant charter sales staff inhouse. So, we are targeting the smaller operators where maybe a chief pilot or someone in dispatch is doubling up as a charter salesperson. That doesn’t work. Obviously being a dispatch operator is one kind of skill, being a charter salesperson is another, and very few people can put 100 percent into both jobs and be brilliant at both.

What I say to operators when I talk to them is: I am not asking for exclusivity on charter sales on all your managed aircraft from day one. Give me one aircraft and let me show you what I can do. If you are happy, then you will give me more aircraft. There is no entry fee or fixed monthly fee, we are paid commission-based which means if there are no sales we work for free. That’s the best motivation to sell more than others.

We are very confident that our approach puts us at the top of the charter sales league table. Obviously, we cannot by ourselves accelerate demand if the market itself is going through a slow phase but the proper sales model, my team engagement, dedication, work ethic, and motivation all combined together make a difference. Selling over 1000 hours on long-range jets or 700 hours on light jets is the goal we can commit to!

I can’t convince someone to fly if they have no plans to fly. What I can do is to ensure that the aircraft is well-positioned to be their first choice when they do want to fly. And from there, we ensure that they have the best experience so that when they want to fly again, they will choose us. That is what we bring to the table. |BAM

Staying at the top

Jim Rankin, CEO, West Star Aviation, talks to Anthony Harrington about combining growth with the highest service standards in MRO

AH: Jim, West Star Aviation has had a tremendous expansion programme going for a while now. What can you tell us about that programme and the rationale behind it?

JR: The main reason for extending our hangar estate is simply the demand pressure from our MRO operations. We constantly have more demand for our services than we have the hangar space to accommodate that demand.

We have been in a continual phase for a while now of extending the number and scale of the hangars we have at our various

locations. This is all in the service of our MRO business. For example, we recently opened up an additional hangar at Chattanooga, along with a major remodelling of our facility there. We recently purchased a new hangar in Grand Junction and we’re opening a new hangar at East Alton in May.

So, although investing in the construction of a new hangar or purchasing existing hangars is a big commitment, it is an integral part of providing the highest levels of service and meeting the

expectations of our customers. We reinvest in the company every year, and our growth is driven by customer demand.

We have also acquired a couple of smaller hangars and in November we closed our acquisition of Jet East, which we bought from Gama Aviation. That was a deal backed by our private equity owner, The Sterling Group. Jet East had a wellestablished MRO business supporting a number of operators. They also have a well-regarded AOG mobile repair capability.

AH: One of the challenges right across this industry is the shortage of technicians. What’s your answer to the challenges this shortage poses as you look to achieve steady growth in your MRO business?

JR: There is no doubt that the industry has seen a squeeze for a long while when it comes to the availability of qualified technicians. We have done well ourselves because we have always taken this issue extremely seriously. We have deliberately set out to make ourselves the employer of choice. We want all our employees, including our technicians and engineers to want to develop their careers with us here at West Star.

We put a lot of energy and effort into rewarding success and ensuring that people feel recognised and successful. Our management team spends a lot of time working on this. We have done very well in recruiting and retaining the skilled technicians that we need to grow our business and provide top-quality service to our customers.

Part of our success comes down to meticulous planning. When we know we are going to build a new hangar, we start recruiting and training the staff that will be based in that hangar at a very early stage. So, when the hangar is opened, we have the people there from the getgo that we need.

AH: Tell us a bit about your Training Academy. That clearly plays a large role in ensuring that you have the skills you are going to need in the near future and in the years to come.

JR: We have opened our Academy in East Alton. So far, it’s just this one city that we have in the Academy programme, but we want to grow this to other cities where we have a strong presence. Basically, we take on 25 students at a time. We put the next group of 25 students through as soon as the first cohort has completed the course, so it is a continual, rolling process.

We take people with no experience in aircraft engineering and maintenance and we put them through airframe school, to begin with. We have a designated Falcon airframe for them to work on, and a local community college does the formal training. They have an aviation programme and they tailor the course to our tools, equipment and requirements. They do the formal training at our facility.

“ “We have deliberately set out to make ourselves the employer of choice. We want all our employees, including our technicians and engineers to want to develop their careers with us here at West Star.”

The college uses our policy and procedures manual in their training courses. This means that the students are accustomed to our ways before they even start work with us. What is absolutely key here is that they are West Star Aviation employees from the very first day that they start their training. Then they get onthe-job training. They get their airframe license after seven months of training.

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They then go to the OEM for factory training. We also have our own training department outside of the Academy which looks after general further education and continuing training across all our staff.

AH: 2024 is a Presidential election year. That generally has a complicating impact on the market. Have you seen any market reaction yet?

JR: So far, what I can say is that the Presidential election does not appear to have factored into our customers’ thinking in any noticeable way. We’ve not seen any indications of a pullback in business, or any signs of folks putting off decisions.

What we are seeing is that the economy is strong and inflation is back down to a three to four percent range. Which is very encouraging. You still hear the odd talk of a possible dip in the business cycle, but you hear that less and less now as the economy stays strong. From our side, our business is very strong right now and has been for a long time.

AH: You’ve been acquiring hangars and even businesses. Would you say you were in acquisition mode?

JR: If an opportunity comes along that is right for us, we will look at it, but we are not a big acquirer of companies. We did two acquisitions in 2023, but before that, you have to go back three or four years to our previous acquisition. It has to really make sense for us to press ahead with an acquisition.

As far as the future is concerned, we intend to keep on doing what we have done for the last 75 years, namely taking care of our customers and taking care of our employees. We try to make business very simple. The message to all our staff is: come in, do a great day’s work and sleep well at night. Even when we grow, we never lose sight of what we are about. Whatever we do has to benefit our customers and our employees. If it doesn’t, we don’t do it. That philosophy has served us very well.

“ The message to all our staff is: come in, do a great day’s work and sleep well at night. Even when we grow, we never lose sight of what we are about.”

AH: Are you able to move technicians between your sites as demand dictates?

JR: We do move technicians between sites if we need to, but more than that, we work with the customer. If they have a preference and want to take their aircraft to a particular site of ours, we will try to accommodate them. We work hard to have our customers feel confident that no matter which of our sites they go to, they will have the same great service and will experience the same friendly, high-quality care and service.

A lot of our customers have been with us for decades. It has been a really great experience to see them grow their businesses over that period and upgrade their aircraft. Whatever we do, has to be good for our customers. We know that providing one-stop, full service facilities in strategic locations is one way to make sure that our customers get their avionics, maintenance, paint and interiors requirements met. We survey our customers constantly, and the results show that we are meeting quicker turnaround times and delivering great quality.

We track everything we do. We have three standard questions we put to customers and I make sure I read every single response. We are on track to have a really good 2024. |BAM

“ Our share price is strong, the Pearl 15 is doing very well, the Pearl 700 has had a very successful flight test and is due to enter service very soon and the Pearl 10X is making great progress and is achieving the key milestones we have set for it.”

Global Support

Andy Robinson, Senior Vice President Services & Customer Support at RollsRoyce, talks to Anthony Harrington about providing customers with an unmatched support network

AH; Andy, can you give us a quick idea of the scale of Rolls-Royce’s involvement in business aviation?

AR: In 2023 we delivered 222 business aviation engines, up from 165 in the prior year and we plan to deliver 300 engines in 2024. Right now there are over 7700 in-service Rolls-Royce business aviation engines across our TAY, BR710, BR725, Pearl 15 and AE 3007 platforms, providing power to a range of aircraft, including Bombardier, Embraer, Gulfstream and Textron jets.

Our Pearl 700 engine is going through flight testing right now and already has a strong order book. It will power the Gulfstream G700 and G800. The Pearl 10X, which is in development, has had a very positive reaction from the market. It will power the Dassault Falcon 10x. This will be the first time that a Rolls-Royce engine has powered a Dassault aircraft and we are really excited about it.

AH: How is Rolls-Royce doing at present?

AR: The Group is doing very nicely. Our share price is strong, the Pearl 15 is doing very well, the Pearl 700 has had a very successful flight test and is due to enter service very soon and the Pearl 10X is making great progress and is achieving the key milestones we have set for it.

We are shaping the future of cabin experience for VIP aircraft with in-flight entertainment, connectivity solutions and cabin management systems. Our highly customized solutions give VIP and Head of State passengers the freedom to relax and be productive above the clouds.

“ For any owner, aircraft availability is so critical. We asked them, what does good support look like to you? The answer we got was that ‘good’ meant 100% averted missed trips.”

AH: One could argue that ultimately an engine is only as good as the support network behind it. CorporateCare Enhanced is your main engine support program, I believe. Can you take us through it?

AR: The program was first introduced over 20 years ago and has been hugely successful. In all, some 2,500 aircraft and customers are enrolled in the program. Around 2016 we took a serious look at how we could evolve this program further. We looked at what it would take if we looked after everything ancillary to the engine, from the nacelle to the thrust reverser, the inlet and cowls. So, we added complete protection to the package to create CorporateCare Enhanced.

AH: Can you tell us something of how that customer consultation went?

AR: For any owner, aircraft availability is so critical. We asked them, what does good support look like to you? The answer we got was that ‘good’ meant 100% averted missed trips. We define this as the ability to fix any downtime situation in time for the next planned trip. To do this, we decided that we had to commit to recovering an aircraft anywhere in the world in 24 hours.

The Enhanced program was developed through close consultation with our customers, who played a key role in both the design and the pricing. It covers corrosion as well as planned and unplanned labour. We announced it at NBAA 2018 and formally launched it Jan 2019.

Since then we have signed 1,270 contracts. Just over half of our CorporateCare fleet is now on the upgraded Enhanced version. For new deliveries on our Pearl engines, over 76% have opted for the Enhanced program and many of our original CorporateCare customers are moving to Enhanced.

The next stage was to measure every step in a recovery project to see how we were performing, and to build a global network that would allow us to achieve the 24-hour goal. Today, that network has 85 Authorised Service Centres around the world and 10 dedicated CorporateCare AOG stores strategically located across the globe.

We have 78 dedicated On-Wing service technicians and a dedicated engine shop in Montreal that is purely focused on business jet engines. On top of this, we have 25 customer service managers. Montreal is our volume shop. We have a smaller shop in Berlin as well that does early-in-life support for Pearl engines. Of course, given how new the Pearl engines are, we do not expect to see volume repairs on Pearl engines around the next 15 years.

There is no other program out there like it that offers that breadth of coverage and value. It ensures that there are zero surprises for the owner, as well as very strong liquidity benefits. Aircraft that are in the program sell quicker and for higher prices.

We have a 24/7 dedicated business aviation Aircraft Availability centre in Berlin that is staffed by a number of engineers, and logistics personnel, along with spare parts sales, all managed by a duty manager. The whole operation is dedicated to getting an aircraft flying again as quickly as possible.

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AH: How much capacity does this centre have and how challenging have some of these rapid recoveries been?

AR: Some of the recoveries we have done under the program have been very complex. We’ve done recoveries off the Maldives, on the island of Kaua’i in Hawaii and at Massett Island, off the coast of Alaska. These were complex and expensive recoveries and were all covered by the program.

We’ve chartered aircraft to take tools and people to recover aircraft. We’ve even chartered a boat so that we could get a forklift truck to an AOG incident, to get the engine off the aircraft. We chartered a C130 to get to Massett Island, for example. We’ve also had an engine change in Iraq, which was very challenging. The main point here is that our network is focused on getting the aircraft back into the air and we will do whatever is necessary to get the job done.

AH: What about onboard diagnostics?

AR: For the latest Pearl engines we have developed an engine vibration and health monitoring unit (EVHMU) that can monitor around 10,000 parameters, and can communicate back and forth with ground control. The algorithms can show us exactly what is going on and can locate developing issues not just with the core engine as is typical but also with the engine accessories at a very early stage.

is continual and we absorb and analyse terabytes of data after every flight.

Of course, we work very closely with the OEMs and we have good agreements with them which enables us to get the data transmitted from the aircraft in flight. It is obviously in everyone’s best interests, ours, the OEMs and the owners, to constantly improve aircraft availability.

This allows us to take remedial action well in advance of real problems, so we avoid what might eventually have turned out to be an engine-related AOG. It is supported by a team of digital engineers writing algorithms and scenarios that can search for patterns in the data flow.

Many years ago, you’d get five snapshots of what was going on while the aircraft was in flight and there would be a 30-day lag in analysing that data. Now the data feed

AH: You have also launched CorporateCare Flex. What can you tell us about that?

AR: This programme is bespoke to each aircraft. It is intended for older aircraft that are coming towards the end of their lives, where a shop visit on an engine might not make too much economic sense. So, rather than asking the owner to invest in those engines, we look at what solutions we can provide. We might say, for example, we’ll take the original two engines and an annual fee, and provide the power the owner is going to need while they use up the remaining life of the jet. Those engines go into our pool of engines, and we’ll keep the aircraft flying for as long as the owner requires.

We have a service level agreement that takes care of the remaining life of the airframe, or we can offer ‘on-wing services’ only. That approach has been popular on some Gulfstream GIV’s for example.

So, a point to emphasise is that we have invested in a service network dedicated only to business aviation. There is a big difference between how you go about supporting a commercial airline, where price is key, and how you support a business aviation customer, where speed, how fast you can get the jet back into the air, is going to be more important. We recognise that and have built an organization and capability dedicated to delivering that service. |BAM

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Transfer to the Alps ski resorts (limousines, luxury 4WD, helicopter)

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BIGGER IS BEST

Chadi Saade, President of Airbus Corporate Jets, talks to Anthony Harrington about factors favouring the ACJ TwoTwenty

AH: Chadi, can we start with a quick recap of the state of the business liner and general business jet market?

CS: As of January 2024 there were approximately 24,300 business jets in service. Of course, a good percentage of that is comprised of light and medium-sized jets. If you look just at the large cabin, long-range segment, there are approximately 3,400 aircraft, of which perhaps 500 are bizliners.

This is the segment of the market that the ACJ TwoTwenty is targeting. So, if you subtract the new aircraft from that

3,400 number, it leaves approximately 1,700 aircraft that are ten years old or older. This is the replacement and upgrade market that we are targeting over the next five to ten years.

AH: I imagine that the market trend towards bigger, longer-range jets is very much on your side?

CS: Absolutely. The trend over the last two decades has been for the OEMs to keep pushing both the cabin size and the range each new model can fly. It is natural for Customers to want to upgrade their aircraft each time they are in the market.

“ “With a jet, you want to be able to stand up and walk around. You want to take a proper shower, conduct productive meetings and sleep in a proper bed; these are what you get with an ACJ TwoTwenty, and not just for a single person. You can have up to ten people sleeping in proper beds in an ACJ TwoTwenty.”

This can be either for business reasons, because the corporation has grown and needs to fly more executives than before, or for family reasons, or simply because you want more comfort and more space. The trend is clear. If you look at the successive generations of new models that other OEMs have introduced, they are predominantly somewhat bigger, with more range than the preceding models.

What we want to do is show people that the ACJ TwoTwenty is ideally positioned and offers so many unique advantages over even the newest business jets. It really does need to be what they look at for their next upgrade.

AH: And those advantages are?

CS: The plus points are very simple to make. First and foremost, of course, is the added space the ACJ TwoTwenty offers. Whatever you purchase, space is always an important

criterion. With a jet, you want to be able to stand up and walk around. You want to take a proper shower, conduct productive meetings and sleep in a proper bed; these are what you get with an ACJ TwoTwenty, and not just for a single person. You can have up to ten people sleeping in proper beds in an ACJ TwoTwenty. That is the first of the advantages I would point to.

Then you look at other elements of comfort such as the great lighting system and the ultra-low noise level the cabin provides. There is also a great deal of technology that goes into the air management system on an ACJ, which provides a very low cabin altitude.

Another advantage is that one of the big drivers of comfort on board a jet is the humidity level. We are working closely with CTT, and customers now have the option of adding humidifiers to their ACJ TwoTwenty.

Besides the comfort in the cabin, one has to point to performance. You want to be able to take off and land at the airports that are most convenient for you. The ACJ TwoTwenty, with its short take-off and landing capacity, is perfect for short and challenging airfields, ensuring operational flexibility and efficiency.

Range, of course, is important. A couple of the latest models announced by the OEMs have more range than the ACJ TwoTwenty. However, we point out to customers that the ACJ will fly you in comfort for 12 hours straight. That is a nice,

intercontinental range. It will get you from the Middle East to all Europe, Asia and Africa, or from London to Los Angeles, for example. So you can link a very large number of key cities.

Besides, if you occasionally do need to travel between a city pair that is outside that 12-hour range, what would you rather do? You can travel with a very high degree of comfort, and make a stopover, or you can sit in a much smaller business jet for 15 hours straight. If you only do one or two 15-hour trips in a year, it makes much more sense to travel in comfort all year and make that stop on the rare occasions when you need that extra three hours of flight time.

AH: People tend to think that the bigger size of an ACJ means that the economics will be all on the side of conventional business jets. This is actually wrong, is it not?

CS: It is perhaps natural for folks to think that a bigger jet is going to cost a lot of money to run. However, this ignores the fact that the ACJ’s pedigree is in the commercial airline space. To win sales in that market we design the aircraft to keep maintenance and operating costs to a minimum and to maximise efficiency.

This means that the ACJ TwoTwenty is much more efficient than many of the aircraft out there. It has a 30 percent lower operating cost than its direct competitors. The first C-check

for example, is scheduled at six years and the maintenance cost is much lower than is true for most of the aircraft out there.

So, not only is the aircraft bigger, it offers a 30% lower operating cost and has a demonstrably better residual value than a business jet. Another strong factor here is that, unlike the business jet OEMs, we do not change our design with every new model. Obviously, we improve the technology throughout the aircraft all the time, but you don’t get that hit to a current jet’s price that happens every time an OEM produces a new model.

AH: What of cabin connectivity?

CS: The ability to stay connected while in flight, and to do everything you would do on the ground, such as video conferencing, is now an absolute necessity. We recently partnered with Eutelsat OneWeb to offer our ACJ Connect Link, which provides an advanced, inflight connectivity solution for ACJ customers. The bandwidth this offers is the best available and utilises OneWeb’s Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation of satellites.

Key here is the fact that OneWeb’s services provide lower latency and higher speeds than the competition, making it the best solution for our customers.

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AH: Comlux has a deal with Airbus whereby it is buying ACJ TwoTwenty and outfitting them in its own completion centre for onward sale. How is that deal going?

CS: Comlux is a major partner of ours. They have done very well as a completions house offering a wide range of design and interior options to high net worth owners, government and Head of State clients. They have already completed the first two of the ACJ Two Twenty’s at their facility and have more on order. It is a great partnership for both ACJ and Comlux.

AH: Let’s talk about the support network that you are able to provide to your owners and operators.

CS: You have to remember that Airbus has over 13,000 family aircraft flying all across the globe. Every half a second one of our aircraft is taking off or landing somewhere on Earth. On the A220 side, we have about 300 aircraft flying today, and roughly 600 in our backlog. So, wherever you go in the world, whether it is one of the major airport hubs or a smaller airfield, you will see an Airbus jet and have an Airbus representative close to you.

We have technicians and engineers all around the world supporting our aircraft. Everyone benefits from this. We have our ACJ Care package, plus our hotline, called C4U, which any owner or operator of an ACJ can call. We recognise that our ACJ customers often have different queries or issues from our commercial airline customers, so we have our own support team on call for our ACJ customers.

Another point is that with over 13,000 aircraft flying all around the world, we have a global network of spare parts. Our C4U customer care centre provides customised and rapid access to our global spares network.

AH: Lastly, Chadi, what are your views of your new position and how do you see things developing, particularly on the sustainability front?

CS: I feel incredibly fortunate to have this position. I have been with Airbus as an organisation for the last 20 years and with ACJ for some years now. So it is a great privilege to lead this phenomenal team.

On sustainability, what I say is that it is clearly not an option but a necessity. We were amongst the first to put sustainability at the heart of our operations and approach. We are investing very heavily in our products to boost sustainability. We invest some two billion euros a year in R&D. We do enhancements all the time to reduce fuel burn and to make our aircraft leaner and more efficient.

All our aircraft can now fly with a 50 percent blend of SAF and aviation fuel and by 2030 they will all be able to fly with 100 percent SAF onboard. On top of this, we are developing some sustainability services and I am very confident that you will see business aviation as a whole making great strides in this area in the months and years to come. |BAM

Glossing over trouble:

how industry PR camouflages emerging crises

John Matthews, Founder and CEO of AirX, talks to Anthony Harrington about his concerns regarding the level of debt bolstering LMOs (loss-making operators) in the sector, and his plans for AirX

AH: John, you have been concerned for a long while now that, in your view, too many companies in this sector are running on ego and massive amounts of debt and disguising the truth with dubious accounting techniques. I take it that is still very much your position?

JM: Absolutely. You have to realise that LMOs have come through a decade-long period when interest rates were unrealistically low, and borrowing was easy. Money was easy to come by. In some respects, it still is, if it’s expensive debt. The days I could fly across to America or Canada tomorrow and borrow $40 million on the back of a two to six-month deposit are thankfully over.

So, you have to ask yourself, what happens as this easy money dries up? Companies in our sector that are accustomed to getting out of the holes they’ve dug for themselves by raising yet more at very low rates of interest will struggle.

The reality is that their business models are simply not sustainable, not then, not now, in an era of rising inflation and interest rates, and most aren’t actually built for net cash production anyway.

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“ I am hugely sceptical of people proclaiming their EBITDA numbers as profit. It is such a misleading figure.”

Spiralling operating costs and interest rate increases will swallow even more costs and produce even more…. Losses.

So, what is the way out for these LMOs? I believe that is one of the most interesting questions that no one seems to ask, at least in our sector.

I fear that this industry is heading for an almighty asset crash and investor losses. Companies that have repeatedly gained headlines and plaudits by announcing their purchase of new jets will find that their real revenue earning potential is far short of supporting the debt mountains that they have built up.

The result in the next few months to years could well be hundreds of various executive aircraft variants coming back onto the market at firesale prices, to the detriment of the sector banks and manufacturing sector for a while.

AH: That said, how has this past year been for you and AirX?

JM: We are coming off a record 2023. I use those words in their true meaning. We had roughly €160 million of revenue €27.5 of EBITDA, and €8m of net cash generation. Notice the difference between EBITDA and net cash generation. It shows the risks of relying on EBITDA as a metric.

You will know from our earlier conversation that I am hugely sceptical of people proclaiming their EBITDA numbers as profit. It is such a misleading figure. For example, our 2023

EBITDA figure was 50 percent up on our figures for 2022, but in reality, our cash generation improved by just 15 per cent. That is a good number, but it is not 50 percent.

AH: What is your sense of the charter market right now?

JM: It is steady but tough. You have to think seriously about trading strategies.

AH: Talking to charter brokers, Avinode seems to play such a huge role in their business approaches. What do you think this industry would be like if Per, Oliver and their colleagues had never launched Avinode?

JM: It’s an interesting thought. To start with, I think there is little doubt that you would have far fewer brokers in the industry. You would also have higher rates, significantly higher rates, and better relationships. Avinode needs to be transactional but has no metal, so how it gets there confuses me. It can’t even show accurate pricing; quite the opposite, as it enjoys offering an opaque trading platform, which is beyond logical for me.

In my view, Avinode has created something that works like a purpose-built liars poker platform in that buyers can use false pricing to push down rates to their advantage. The reality that we all live in right now is that the cost of running a jet is definitely going up rather than down, but we operate from a false pricing index that forces a rate spiral where you have a better chance of getting less than more. That is another factor that will expose unsustainable business models in the sector.

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“ The real value depreciation on a new jet is like going off the edge of a cliff. If you buy ten new jets, the write-off is astronomical. Why would I take that on? When we have refurbished a bizliner, it looks as good as new for a fraction of the cost.”

AH: Can you build loyalty, as a charter operator, amongst those who are frequent users?

JM: Definitely. You can most certainly build loyalty amongst your user base. I grow clients through financial contacts who helped me borrow and grow AirX. Once you have direct contact with passengers and have fixed income offers, the passenger wants to be involved with the operator. If both take each other seriously and treat each other well, there is plenty of opportunity for strong relationships to develop.

My advice to brokers is to be very careful what you make off your clients. If you are ripping them off, they will soon discover that fact. The last thing a broker wants to see is a mixed group of private flying passengers delayed by the weather, say, chatting together in an FBO. You know they are swapping their pricing and service experiences!

Humble and fair wins. Look at the giants that dominate the brokering sector; far too many new brokers are trying to “rinse” opportunities.

AH: You have quite a unique business model when regular charter users decide the time has come for them to become aircraft owners. Can you tell us about it?

JM: Surely. When someone decides they want to become a buyer, our proposition is, by all means, buy the aircraft. I will then treat you as if you were a bank and will buy the aircraft back from you. The benefit to you is flying at cost. This is a huge IRR, and it is difficult to overstate its value for the buyer. They never have to worry about a management or aircraft bill. It’s finance arbitrage.

Another point I’d make is that today’s world is about debt coverage. Even owners of large aircraft may not be as liquid as you think or expect. This means that they are concerned about costs. The era of easy money is ending, so our model is growing.

AH: you have always made a point of buying pre-owned jets and refurbishing them. Can you speak to that?

JM: It is very simple. The real value depreciation on a new jet is like going off the edge of a cliff. If you buy ten new jets, the write-off is astronomical. Why would I take that on? When we have refurbished a bizliner, it looks as good as new for a fraction of the cost. That doesn’t look fabulous in a press release, but as a business model, it is golden. Again, it is all about avoiding ego trips and focusing on business logic.

We now have 17 jets, and we work them hard. That is another reason I focus on bizliners rather than business jets. With a bizliner, you qualify as a low-hours operator even with an average of 1,100 hours a year.

I do not see aircraft as having a sell-by date the way most do in this sector.

You can safely fly a businessliner for tens of thousands of hours or 30 to 40 years and still, as I say, be on the lowutilisation maintenance programme!

AH: What is your major preoccupation at present?

JM: I am focused on the fact that the data and financials of major players point to probably one of the biggest risks we face as a company: the worry is not finding a large debt and equity partner by the time the asset crash occurs. I’ve been predicting this for over seven years. I would find it incredibly sad if I watched industry prices collapse around me and I had no equity partner to go hunting acquisitions.

AH: You are a profitable, solidly run company. What’s the problem with securing an equity partner?

JM: I would preface this by saying I am in talks with two equity firms and am quite hopeful that one will come through. The problem is two-fold. First, our business

“ The industry contains unsustainably large LMOs (loss-making operators) working off unsustainable business plans that only survive by a constant flow of debt raisesthat can’t continue indefinitely.”

model of buying older aircraft and refurbishing them for charter is not common in the industry, so the novelty is a hurdle to overcome.

Second, equity firms, as we have seen repeatedly, like to deploy a lot of capital once they team up with a business aviation company. The last thing I need is an equity partner who says, “Great, John, here’s $400 million. Put it to work, please.” The only way that works is to buy new aircraft, and that is commercial suicide.

AH: Just a final word on that asset crash you’re predicting. What do you say to the doubters?

JM: We have seen some 900+ global aircraft added to the sector over the last year, with fewer buyers. On top of that, the industry contains unsustainably large LMOs (lossmaking operators) working off unsustainable business plans that only survive by a constant flow of debt raises - that can’t continue indefinitely. The most dangerous time is when the debt is no longer raised for growth but to rescue the loss that’s being created, and that’s where this industry is at present.

To me, that adds up to a coming crash.

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Gogo is Global

Introduction

Gogo Making Progress with Gogo Galileo LEO Satellite Service

Gogo Business Aviation is making significant progress with its Gogo Galileo global broadband service which will provide high-speed, low-latency inflight connectivity to aircraft of all sizes and mission types.

At the end of March, Gogo announced it had achieved a major milestone with Gogo Galileo by completing an end-to-end connection using its HDX antenna on the Eutelsat OneWeb Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite network. Gogo received the first engineering prototype of the HDX electronically steerable antenna (ESA) from its manufacturer, Hughes Network Systems, and installed it on the roof of its headquarters in Colorado in late-February. Gogo immediately began software integration and validation testing, and shortly thereafter completed the end-to-end connection.

Gogo

Galileo HDX Prototype Making Connections

We talked to some of the key players in the development of the new global service to get more perspective and insight into these milestones and what they ultimately mean for operators worldwide.

Q: It sounds like the Gogo Galileo program is coming along nicely. What can you tell us about the latest developments for the new service?

Sergio Aguirre, Gogo Business Aviation president and COO: “Gogo Galileo HDX stands to revolutionize business aviation inflight connectivity by delivering a solution fit for aircraft of all sizes, especially small jets, which have limited options today, and no broadband options outside North America. We will begin flight testing with the HDX terminal this summer and everything is progressing as we expected. The completion of the end-to-end antenna to satellite connection was the first major step required for us to prove the functionality of the antenna technology with the LEO satellite network, and ultimately the entire Gogo Galileo ecosystem including the AVANCE LRU.

“Gogo Galileo is expected to provide an office-like experience in the sky, that will meet the high expectations of

SERGIO AGUIRRE

customers for fast inflight connectivity. It will have very low latency thanks to the game-changing power of LEO satellite connectivity. There are about 14,000 business aircraft that operate all around the world that are either regional aircraft in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East or Asia, or those that primarily fly transcontinental routes that, for the most part, have never had a broadband solution that meets their needs. Gogo Galileo will serve this market across the entire breadth of business aviation from the smallest business jets all the way up to VVIP aircraft.”

Q: Jason, what is the status of the Eutelsat OneWeb network and what does this milestone mean from your standpoint?

Jason Sperry, head of business aviation for Eutelsat OneWeb: “Our LEO constellation is fully deployed, and we are finalising the ground infrastructure. This successful test of the Gogo Galileo HDX on the Eutelsat OneWeb network is a meaningful milestone because it means the connection between the antenna and the network is working, and this is extremely timely ahead of our launch of aviation connectivity services later this year.”

Q: What can you tell us about what Hughes and Gogo have done with the design of the HDX antenna for Gogo Galileo to enable it to serve smaller business aircraft?

Reza Rasoulian, vice president for Hughes Network Systems: “The new HDX ESA has been designed and built to meet the size, weight, and power requirements of business aviation aircraft of all sizes. Today’s passengers demand

exceptional connectivity while flying, so the ability to provide secure and reliable connectivity globally, which our fl at-panel antennas provide, meets a critical need in the industry. Hughes is proud to be a partner in bringing Gogo Galileo to market.”

Q: You recently announced that the first European Supplemental Type Certificates (STCs) are in

development for the HDX antenna and that you’re partnering with Atlas Air Service AG on that initiative. What does that mean for operators in Europe and elsewhere around the globe?

Shuaib Shahid, head of international sales for Gogo: “That’s correct. We’ve partnered with Atlas Air Service AG to develop the first European STCs for the HDX antenna

SHUAIB SHAHID & JASON SPERRY AT CJI LONDON

and that will cover the Cessna Citation series of light jet aircraft. They are developing another STC for the Embraer Phenom 300. Atlas Air Service specializes in the market we are targeting for the HDX – midsize and smaller aircraft –which makes them the perfect partner for Gogo Galileo in Europe. Atlas Air Service has been at the forefront of getting these STCs developed, which speaks volumes about the partnership we’ve built with them. We expect to announce additional STCs with Atlas in the coming months.”

Q: This is exciting news, especially for operators in Europe. Why did Atlas Air Service AG choose to partner with Gogo and what makes Gogo Galileo standout compared to other options?

Radu Grigore, deputy director of MRO commercial for Atlas Air Service AG: “For the first time ever, a true global broadband service will be available to thousands of aircraft operators in Europe and around the world. For many years our customers have been asking for a small and affordable broadband solution for their aircraft. We wanted to be among the first to partner with Gogo to develop these STCs and bring true broadband inflight Wi-Fi for every segment of business aviation.

“The small form factor is the most important area of differentiation from other satellite services available today, but the ease of installation is also a key component. We are focusing our initial STC on the Cessna Citation 525 series of aircraft which encompasses the CJ1, CJ2, CJ3, and CJ4, and hardware installation is expected this summer on a CJ1+ that we own and operate, and another for the Phenom 300. Both will be done through the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and validated with other agencies worldwide.”

Q: What does the market look like for those airframes?

Grigore: “The STCs will cover more than 2,600 total aircraft in operation today worldwide, which includes more than 1,850 Citations and over 750 Phenom 300s. We also plan to have the CJ1+ available for in-person demos at the European Business Aviation Conference and Expo (EBACE) static display in Geneva.

ATLAS AIR SERVICE AG CJ1+

RADU GRIGORE

Q: Sergio, where do you see the greatest impact of Gogo Galileo taking place?

Aguirre: ”We see a few areas of impact for our customer base. The first is globally where we are providing a new option for aircraft that currently don’t have any broadband connectivity solution available because the geosynchronous (GEO) systems are too big and heavy – and expensive – and other options provide only dial-up speeds. So, Gogo Galileo with the HDX will be revolutionary to midsize and smaller aircraft globally.

“Within North America, we expect 5G to be a popular choice for aircraft that fly primarily in North America. Today, we have the largest share of large aircraft in North America, with more aircraft using our solutions in this category than all the GEO systems combined. We believe that many of those customers who also fly internationally will add Gogo Galileo because it’s a simple upgrade to any AVANCE system that’s already installed. And, it’s a more affordable, better performing and reliable option than GEO service provides.

“Additionally, current customers operating midsize and super-midsize business jets that are currently equipped with our air-to-ground system also now have the option to have Gogo Galileo with the addition of a single antenna mounted on the fuselage to provide coverage when they fly internationally, or to a destination like Hawaii. We believe this configuration will be very popular in these business jet segments, and we see this as a growth opportunity for Gogo in terms of customer expansion and demographics.”

Q: In February, Gogo announced a new 10-year agreement with NetJets, the worldwide leader in private aviation. What do you believe makes Gogo an ideal choice for large fleet operators?

Aguirre: “Gogo has been in business for 30 years and we have been doing business with NetJets specifically, and other fractional operators, for the last 20 years. First, I think there is a level of trust and confidence we have gained through our ability to introduce new technology to them in the past. Gogo

ENGINEERING SR. MANAGER, GOGO BUSINESS AVIATION, HOLDING AN HDX

also has a track record of being able to support them and that’s unique because we understand their operations, their business models, and their mission, which is very different from other business-jet operators. Gogo has a deep understanding of fleet operators, and our support reflects that.

“Also, we continue to innovate. Recently, we implemented overthe-air software updates for our AVANCE systems which was an incredible achievement by our team. AVANCE customers can now receive automatic updates to their system software, for one aircraft or an entire fleet, from anywhere in the world, over the air. For fractional operators like NetJets, the benefits are immense. It saves a lot of downtime because updates occur automatically, and it provides tremendous savings in time and manpower because those updates that previously had to be done by someone going on board an aircraft, one at a time, now are done automatically all at once. No one else in business aviation can update their system software so efficiently.

“One thing operators like NetJets or other large fractional or charter organizations have in common with an individual or a corporate flight department is that they both try to provide high touch, and high service and support to the principal flight or the passengers who fly on their aircraft. Operationally, it is a lot different to operate a fleet of 50 or even 500 aircraft compared to one or two, and Gogo understands that, and we have gained operators’ trust and confidence through our good track record.”

Get More

Hear more from Atlas Air Service’s Grigore about the opportunity he sees for Gogo Galileo for smaller aircraft operating in Europe. See here gogo.to/bizav-atlas |BAM

ERIK KLAUS,

Expanding with the BEST

Shane Combs, VP Sales and Design at Citadel Completions, on the company strengthening its sales leadership team

Q: Shane, you’ve made some very impressive new hires and really expanded your team. What was the driver here?

SC: There was no doubt that we needed to grow as an organisation in order to support the rich pipeline of work that we have. Demand has been really strong so even given the new people we have taken on board, we are now in the process of hiring more.

From my own point of view, I feel extremely fortunate that I am with an organisation whose strong reputation for delivering the highest levels of customer satisfaction, makes generating new sales really easy. We receive a tremendous amount of repeat business and the new business generally comes from word-ofmouth recommendations from our existing client base talking to their network of friends and associates. It’s a very rewarding feeling when your customers bring in new leads.

Q: What about your own background?

SC: Personally, I have spent some 30 years in the aviation sector in a great many different roles. I joined Citadel in May 2023. Before this, my experience included senior positions with well-respected organisations such as Gulfstream, Jet Aviation, and Dassault Falcon Jet. I have a lot of experience managing Completion Center programs, leading sales teams, and overseeing complex aircraft refurbishments.

I have a very technical background, so I appreciate more than most senior executives just how much dedication and hard work goes into making these aircraft as safe and beautiful as they are. The key thing here is that these two goals, safety and beauty, actually go hand in hand. Of course, safety comes

first, but if you do things in a safe and methodical manner, you find that you’re able to deliver on time and on budget.

This is not an industry that takes kindly to substandard work. The point is that despite the pressure that is a natural part of meeting the customer’s most exacting requirements, if you go about things properly – and we do – then the team gets accustomed to working at this level of excellence.

Q: Let’s talk a bit about the new team and what your new folks bring to the party.

SC: Our reputation as an organisation is built on our performance. Everyone has a role to play, the crafts persons, the mechanics we employ – it is a testament to their abilities and dedication. The team was strong before, but now it is even stronger. We are bringing in industry veterans with very strong pedigrees.

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RICK ROUTLY has joined us as a dedicated Senior Sales Engineer. He now lends his expertise to the sales team on complex projects and conducts detailed aircraft surveys, providing meticulous technical specifications. Rick has a 30year career in aerospace, working on V/VVIP completions, with Tier 1 suppliers, and has both supply chain management and sales experience. His vast experience and profound technical proficiency significantly enhance Citadel’s capabilities.

MARIA MARUNA is our Completions and Refurbishment Sales Director for the Americas, Europe and Eurasia. Maria spearheads the process of acquiring new clients while ensuring that we nurture and retain our existing clients. Her specialised experience spans 14 years in V/VVIP aircraft Maintenance and Refurbishment Sales. Her career trajectory includes major OEMs, including Bombardier, Embraer, Dassault Falcon, Gulfstream, Boeing and Airbus Corporate Jets.

PAUL KOSIK , our MRO Sales Director, has held this position for the last four years. He has streamlined MRO sales, development and V/VVIP aircraft support. Paul previously had a six-year tenure in customer service for military derivative programs at Delta Air lines. That showcased his ability to handle product lines, orchestrate rectification plans and clarify technical contract details to stakeholders. Before Delta, he enjoyed a 23-year stint with the US Air Force in maintenance and quality standards supervision.

Citadel Completions is also elevating its strategic approach to providing V/VVIP Aircraft services, under the capable guidance of VANESSA ROBERTS . As Business Intelligence Director, Vanessa is at the forefront of developing and executing data-driven sales strategies. Her role involves harnessing analytics to propel business growth within the V/VVIP aircraft completion, RMU and MRO sectors.

Vanessa has a remarkable career spanning 39 years in Aviation and brings in-depth expertise to her role. Specializing in VIP green aircraft design, completions, and induction for both wide and narrow-body aircraft across all major OEMs, she has worked with over 25 different aircraft types. Her breadth of knowledge and experience make her an invaluable asset to Citadel.

The design team is led by CONNOR WEISENT , its Senior Aircraft Designer. Connor is an expert in creating stunning V/VVIP Aircraft products and interiors, blending advanced technology and premium materials into timeless designs.

With ten years of experience in luxury aviation and marine design, Connor combines creativity, practicality, and problem-solving in his work. His team specializes in customizing every aspect of aircraft interiors, from the initial floor plans to the final realization of the client’s vision, elevating Citadel’s design capabilities.

SARAH PARK-FURFARI, an accomplished luxury Aircraft Designer, supports Citadel by crafting bespoke V/VVIP Aircraft design and interiors. Sarah is adept at creating interiors, floor plans, LOPAs and transforming initial sketches into fully realized interior designs.

A graduate of Ohio State University, Sarah’s passion for design has earned her numerous accolades. She brings a wealth of experience to the team, having served as Lead Conceptual Designer at AERIA Luxury Interiors and Aircraft Cabin Designer at Gore Design Completions. |BAM

Carry-on Beds

Gary Bosstick, President, JetBed, on his latest breakthrough in Carry-on Beds for jets

INTRODUCTION

In 2005 Gary Bosstick decided to design a carry-on JetBed for his CJ3 so that his wife could sleep comfortably whenever they were traveling. He patented his design and Cessna took it up as an aftermarket option for customers.

Nineteen years since its inception, JetBed is the leading sleep solution for private and corporate aircraft. The JetBed has evolved from its original design to reduce its packing size, giving owners and operators the same quality and comfort, without needing to sacrifice precious cabin or luggage space. Additionally, JetBed designs & manufactures custom fitted Italian linen sheets for their beds, giving their customers the ultimate luxury sleep experience in flight.

Q: Gary, your JetBeds are now regular carry-on items on a broad range of jets, one of the most recent being Bombardier’s Global 7500. What makes your JetBeds the leading option for onboard sleep?

GB: From 2006 onwards, the big selling point for our Jetbeds has been that they provide a true flatbed for passengers to sleep on. You can even lie on your side in comfort due to the mattress material. There are no contours. It is COMPLETELY flat. So the choice is simple, you can be uncomfortable on a berthing seat - which have contours that make for a really uncomfortable night, or you can sleep in comfort on one of our JetBeds.

“ With Jetbed Blue we’ve reduced the uninflated JetBed size by 70 percent. You can now pack three JetBeds in the same space that a single JetBed used to take up. The JetBed is now by far the most space efficient sleep solution for your aircraft.”

Q: I believe you have a new innovation that reduces the size of your JetBeds when not in use?

GB: Absolutely. A common concern all owners and operators have when bringing a bed onboard is cabin and luggage space - both during flight and when the bed is not in use. People don’t want to be faced with the choice of either curtailing the amount of luggage they take with them or not taking the JetBed and having a really uncomfortable sleep. So we wanted to make a major improvement in the size of the foldaway JetBed, even when it was fully deflated.

Space is at a premium in any jet, so we want customers to have the most space available when they’re using our beds.

When we started getting orders for five or six JetBeds for a single Gulfstream size jet, we knew we needed a solution that would enable the uninflated JetBed to reduce down in size by two thirds at least. We started experimenting by going to Walmart and buying ziploc space bags. We could cram a whole JetBed inside one. That shrunk the bed somewhat but the zipper wasn’t great. The plastic was slippery, which made it hard to move and the cover could easily be punctured or torn. We gave up on the Walmart bags and experimented for ages trying to find a good solution.

Finally, we found an airtight metal zipper. This enabled us to vacuum compress the bag in our patented vacuum carry bag. Our innovations didn’t stop there. Our original batteryoperated air pump wasn’t strong enough to handle the vacuum side of things. We found a plug-in pump that uses the aircraft’s power system and it both vacuum compresses the reusable bags and inflates the JetBed. Additionally the new pump is very quiet. We also committed to sourcing a material for the JetBed bag that would be fire resistant and durable. We made all of these improvements and the result is our Jetbed Blue series.

With Jetbed Blue we’ve reduced the uninflated JetBed size by 70 percent. You can now pack three JetBeds in the same space that a single JetBed used to take up. The JetBed is now by far the most space efficient sleep solution for your aircraft.

Q: I imagine that the size reduction of the uninflated bed was a big hit?

GB: Absolutely! When we showed it to Bombardier, they

called it a game-changer, which it definitely is. The first two customers for Jetbed Blue are a giant theme park operator and movie company, and an international fast food company. Both are buying more JetBeds from us for all their aircraft. The design for our vacuum bag for JetBed Blue is internationally patented, which means we have the exclusive rights to sell this proprietary product. You aren’t able to get this kind of comfort and space efficiency anywhere else in the market.

Q: Tell us about the sheets for your beds, how did those come to market?

GB: For many years, we did not offer custom fitted linens for the JetBed. Our customers were purchasing linens from traditional bedding stores, which didn’t perfectly fit the unique design of each bed design. So we got to work sourcing, designing, and innovating to meet the growing demand for JetBed sheets. My daughter, Jordan, put a year into researching the best linens for us. They are provided by Rivolta Carmignani, who has been producing fine linens in the heart of Milan since 1867, in other words, for over 150 years.

JetBed Linens

“ Our linen fabric source in Italy supplies bed sheets for some of the most notable luxury hotels in the world, including One & Only Pamilla, Hotel De Crillon, The Carlyle, Mandarin Oriental, & Rosewood Abu Dhabi just to name a few.”

Our sheets are manufactured in the JetBed factory in California to fit the unique contouring of your JetBed’s sidewall configuration, seat width, seat height and club spacing to perfection. Our linen fabric source in Italy supplies bed sheets for some of the most notable luxury hotels in the world, including One & Only Pamilla, Hotel De Crillon, The Carlyle, Mandarin Oriental, & Rosewood Abu Dhabi just to name a few.

Their linens are designed with ultimate luxury in mind, however the real benefit is in their quality and durability. As sheets designed for the best hotels in the world must not only be comfortable, but durable and able to withstand regular washing. Owners and operators can wash our linens and know they are designed to last and won’t lose their luxury feel.

Q: What’s the next step?

GB: We are designing a new generation of these vacuum bags to take all of the linen and bedding, including blankets, duvets and pillows that clients want to include for their Jetbed. By vacuum packing these bags we believe we can reduce the packing size by 70 percent or more. We’re now getting ready to roll this out to the market generally.

Q: So, business is good?

GB: Business is very good. Our latest patent is for a smaller JetBed designed specifically for the crew rest area in business jets. This is selling extremely well.

An interesting feature is that the cabin pressurization on some business jets required us to put air ducts through the Jetbed. That is not an easy technical problem to solve with an inflatable bed. You have to control both the shape and the dimension of the ducts and that is very hard to do with a three-dimensional inflatable bed. We solved it, and that design too is patented as well.

Our beds are naturally very light and now that we have reduced the storage space requirements for the beds when they are packed away, we score well on two major areas of concern for business aviation, namely space and weight. On top of this, the beds are more comfortable than any first class berthing seat. |BAM

Innovation never stops

Richard Giles, Aerospace Global Technical Service Manager at Sherwin-Williams Aerospace Coatings, on the need for continuous innovation

Q: Sherwin-Williams has had three new Aerospace Coatings product releases in 2024. How were you able to launch these in such an expedited timeframe?

RG: Product development can take several years before a new product is ready to be released in the aerospace coatings market. Our team at Sherwin-Williams worked diligently to keep several ongoing projects on pace for a Q1-2024 release. As technology evolves and scope expands within the aerospace coatings industry, we strive for continuous development –our goal is to create new, innovative and versatile products and solutions in the colour space.

“Our team at Sherwin-Williams worked diligently to keep several ongoing projects on pace for a Q1-2024 release.”

Today, our portfolio consists of an impressive range of coatings, spanning different product types, applications, and geography. Additionally, we work very closely with

our distributor network introducing new products, hosting hands-on demonstrations and discussing the latest industry development trends. They provide our team with invaluable insights from new and existing customers, which are crucial as we continuously evolve to meet their needs.

Q: What is it that you strive for in a new coating?

RG: You must know your end user(s) and understand the challenges they face to produce a reliable solution. When we

SKYSCAPES SINGLE STAGE

develop a new coating, we consider the technology, production cost, specifications, testing and timing. Furthermore, when you begin the development process, you are typically on a three-year development path, so you need to be spot-on with emerging market trends and developments. Our success has largely been attributed to having a pulse on the trajectory of the market.

Q: What are the big themes or issues for you?

RG: Hexavalent chromium [Cr(VI)] is a hazardous

metal added to alloy steel to increase hardenability and corrosion resistance. It is an occupational carcinogen that is generated when it becomes airborne from sanding, prepping and spraying surfaces. No question, the market would like to see the removal of chrome from aerospace surface finishings to include pre-treatment, primer and specialty coatings and that is why we have made it a top priority.

To meet market demands, SherwinWilliams developed Next Generation Chrome Free Epoxy Primers – highperformance, two-component corrosioninhibitive primers which contain no chromate making it an ideal application on several types of aircraft, including commercial airline, business jets, military aircraft, UAV’s, rotor aircraft and general aviation. The primers provide exceptional performance with various substrates and pretreatments and are designed to work with all Sherwin-Williams exterior topcoat systems.

Sherwin-Williams also introduced Jet Prep™ Pretreatment (CM0220P01) – a chrome-free, water-based, translucent, sol-gel metal pretreatment solution designed specifically for the aerospace industry. The two-component pretreatment kit provides superior adhesion and corrosion protection over aluminum substrates, and pairs with aerospace-grade corrosion-protective epoxy primers and topcoat paint systems.

Q: What happens initially when an aircraft rolls into a paint shop? What are the procedures?

RG: Painting an aircraft is a complex, multi-step process that must be carried out to perfection to achieve optimum

results. First, a comprehensive evaluation on the current state of paintwork is conducted. In most cases, the aircraft is being repainted so the previous layer of paint will need to be removed before a new coating can be applied. The exterior is sanded so that all former paint residues are dissolved and removed. A series of D checks are performed throughout this process which are comprehensive inspections and repairs of the entire aircraft including damage and corrosion.

Q: How has the market reacted to your recent product launches?

RG: The market has responded very positively. The products are simple to mix and apply, provide excellent performance and delivery reliability. Our customers and early adopters can quickly see the advantages and share a common goal of integrating environmentally friendly, sustainable and economical coatings into the aerospace coatings industry.

Q: What operator errors or coating challenges do you commonly run into and how do you work with your customers to resolve the issue?

RG: Our customers are our number one priority, and we are in constant communication with them especially if or when issues arise. For example, occasionally, the wrong product mix is selected and/or applied, in that scenario we provide timely solutions, additional training and onsite assistance to rectify the issue. We work with our customers to identify risks, navigate challenges, and overcome business market obstacles in real-time and then develop mitigation strategies ensuring long-term success, performance, and longevity. |BAM

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Gourmet d ining at 40,000 feet

Top chef, Jamie Gibson, Founder and CEO of Flightess LLC, on launching her own business

Q: Jamie, what can you tell us about your route into business aviation?

JG: I began my career as a flight attendant flying for the US government on a wide range of government flights, none of which I can talk about. So, transitioning from there to hospitality was a relatively easy and smooth change.

After my time with the US Government, I went to culinary school in Majorca and graduated in 2020. I arrived back home just as the whole world closed down with the pandemic. I was flying in London most of the time and we were stuck in the hotel there.

What attracted me to cooking onboard in business aviation was that while there were some obvious exceptions, you

could find any number of complaints about the catering for business jets. In part, it is easy to see why. There are so many safety restrictions on what you can bring into or do in a galley onboard a business jet.

Although we can bring an induction cooktop on board some business jets, you have to mindful of the parameters of the flight such as passenger load and flight time. If you want to do a roast for a complement of 13 passengers on a one hour flight, that is not going to work. Having said that, I have successfully roasted a whole chicken and rack of lamb on board during a flight!

For some jets, for example, a Falcon 7X, there is not enough galley amperage to bring in a cooktop and get it working. However, I have to say that Gulfstreams are fabulous, from a chef’s point of view. They have tremendous galleys. Even then, of course, you are limited in what you can do by the amount of time you are going to be in the air.

Q: Do you have an ideal number of passengers and an ideal flight time that gives you the opportunity to really wow the guests?

JG: Six is a good number to cook for. It is enough to have a solid feeling around the meal planning. Beyond six, given the usual two-hour to two-and-a-half-hour flight duration, you start to be really limited as to your available offerings.

You have to remember that as well as being the chef, I have to be present throughout the service, albeit with frequent trips to the galley. One of the tricks I use is what the French call ‘sous vide’, which is where you pre-cook your proteins like steak or chicken shortly before the flight, and then finish the cooking during the flight. This enables you to bring everything simultaneously to the point of being ready to eat, if you time things properly.

There is a lot you can do to ensure that you can serve a fantastic meal even if the guests want to eat shortly after takeoff. I’ve even prepared and served chocolate mousse onboard just after taking off from Switzerland, much to the guests’ astonishment.

It is a real source of delight and fun for the clients to see that the food has actually been made while they are in the air by the person who is serving them. It also gives me tremendous satisfaction. I handle the wines and the bar during the flight. It is so fun that I can’t believe I get to do this for a living!

Q: How many flights do you do a month?

JG: I used to be away from home for at least two weeks in every month, sometimes more. However, I have recently become a new mum and life has changed a fair bit. I have a fantastic husband who takes a lot of the parenting burden while I am gone, as does my mum. But I now do somewhere between two and five flights a month.

“ That is what gives me a huge amount of energy and positivity, seeing the people we have trained and mentored going out and forging great careers for themselves.”

Q: Your company has expanded to the point where you now offer training and consultancy services. How is that going?

JG: I started my company in 2019 and it has evolved quite a bit since then. I run a mentorship programme where we train some of the most skilled flight attendants. I get tremendous satisfaction from seeing our trainees getting taken on in some very key positions. We also do a lot of boutique staffing and referral placement, along with culinary training.

In fact, the company itself is a full-time job now and is very rewarding. This is all about helping other people to succeed

in their chosen career. That is what gives me a huge amount of energy and positivity, seeing the people we have trained and mentored going out and forging great careers for themselves.

I now have three other employees so it is not just a onewoman show. As far as I am concerned, it is important to stay busy. The fact that I am still acting as a flying chef on top of everything else means that I learn new things all the time that I can bring back to my students. Culinary and Hospitality trends change so quickly. What was cool last year is old news this year, so it is important to stay current and to stay active. |BAM

Cabin and luggage space in any private or corporate aircraft is limited. The new JetBed Blue Bag reduces the packing size of JetBed by approximately 70%. When your JetBed is not in use, you can more conveniently store your JetBed in your cabin storage spaces or luggage compartments. This new innovation makes JetBed the most compact, convenient, and of course comfortable sleep solution for your aircraft.

“ One of our strongest values is that we operate at 51 airports across six European countries.”

Europe’s biggest network

Jerome Ferasin, Chief Sales and Strategy Officer at AviaVIP, on the company’s extensive European network

Q: Jerome, can you take us through AviaVIP’s unique selling points?

JF: As the largest and most integrated FBO network in Europe, we offer a very strong, unique added value for clients. We serve three categories of clients - the VIP pax, the Crew, and the operator’s ops and accounting – and we always take that into consideration. Our aim, always, is to make customer life easier and better, and we can do this because we are the only handler and FBO operator who can provide this degree of integration and simplification across 6 countries.

To talk about integration, we offer today one OCC (Operations Control Centre) in Italy and are deploying soon two more in

Spain and France. These OCCs are integrated into a single, central AviaVIP operation. It is one team, spread across three locations, with complete visibility across all three.

Nice Lounge

One of our strongest values is that we operate at 51 airports across six European countries. If you are the operator and you have a private jet that needs to go to four different locations, say Rome, Mallorca, Nice and Amsterdam, if you were not going through us, you would need four different agreements with four companies for these flights, plus all the ancillary concierge work in 4 locations. You’d need to talk to each FBO involved, manage 8 slot requests, look to the catering, Limousine and so on. It would take many phone calls/emails and consume a lot of time from your team to get that flight sorted out.

In the end, you would get four different invoices with different prices and on different forms. With AviaVIP, there is one single agreement for 51 FBOs across 6 countries and soon one request, whatever the locations of the flights. Our staff take care of everything. You get a single bill that you discuss with just one person. Everything is done for you.

From our side, AviaVIP OCC then engages with each FBO individually. It means that if your itinerary changes en route, because, say, you are delayed in Rome, our OCC handles all the changes that ripple on from that delay for you. We rearrange everything based on that one phone call.

We have a fully harmonised, contractual operation and invoicing system, with the same operating software across

all our operations (MyHandling). This creates a really good, simplified system for the client, as well as for our team. Our logic is simple: AviaVIP OCC does all the communication with customers, background concierge stuff and airport slot books. This means that instead of spending 50 percent of the time dealing with those requests, our staff at the FBO have 50 percent more time to focus on what really matters: take care of the VIP, the crew, the aircraft, be proactive, solve issues, and ensure the best services to our clients.

Palma Entrance

Q: How did AviaVIP come to build up such a big presence that encompasses 51 airports?

JF: The history is like this. Aviapartner is the leading commercial handler in Europe. The company managed over 100 million pax in 2023, in more than 50 airports in Europe and South Africa. Back in 1995, Aviapartner developed Business aviation handling at Nice airport. A few years later, an FBO was setup, which is still one of AviaVIP’s flagship FBOs. Then we started to expand in Europe. We set up FBOs in France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and Germany. Then Argos Italy joined the family.

In 2023 we brought everything together under one brand, AviaVIP. Our FBOs are run in parallel with Aviapartner Commercial and have their own dedicated staff, GSE and corporate identity. Aviapartner Commercial and AviaVIP teams still work closely together, of course, for the benefit of our VIP clients.

This is essential because in Spain and Italy, for example, FBOs cannot handle Boeing and Airbus aircraft on their own due to regulations and the required investment mandated by those GSEs. So, they subcontract the handling to a commercial handler. Today, AviaVIP is the only handler and FBO that can do the full spectrum of business aviation jets, from a CJ2 to an ACJ, and we do this with our own licenses and our own people.

We have a highly trained ground handling staff, while our OCC staff are very experienced in handling concierge matters, interacting with the airport, customer interfacing and so on. AviaVIP OCC in Italy is fully operational. Our Spanish OCC will be operational this summer and France will go live towards the end of this year. The OCC will be 24x7 and directly connected to client operational software through MyHandling.

Q: Are you still making acquisitions?

JF: Indeed, we believe there are still great harmonisation opportunities in Europe and beyond, where the combination of AviaVIP added values and local FBOs expertise would

benefit to our clients. Our logic is to partner with successful independent FBOs to integrate them into the AviaVIP family and expand our network. We have some promising ongoing discussions and most of them are regarding FBOs where the founder is still managing the business. As we place a high value on their expertise, network and knowledge, we always offer them the opportunity to stay on board as the Managing Director and as an AviaVIP top executive.

FBO owners are keen on considering AviaVIP offers because the group as a whole has a single individual owner, who is very involved in the business. We can move very quickly when opportunities arise and that makes us very flexible and unique for a leading player in our business. We think long-term, our vision is always focused on the next 20 years and when we open somewhere, we are not there just for a few years. We come to stay.

Q: Can you tell us something about the recent investments you have made?

JF: In 2023 and on through this year we have been carrying out a massive refurbishment of our FBO lounges. Nice, Malaga and Palma will be ready for the summer season. By the end of 2024, we will do Amsterdam, Majorca, Ibiza, Marseille and Rome, and hope to open our FBOs in Madrid and Barcelona by Spring 2024.

We have designed a new AviaVIP lounge ambience based on feedback from experts involved in the design of numerous five-star hotels, including Palaces from SBM Monaco. It gives a common look and feel across all our FBOs. The result is a relaxed, peaceful and calm environment. All the furniture is high-end, from the same providers.

We have taken care to ensure that the Crew comfort areas are on a par with the VVIP areas, with, wherever possible, separate crew restrooms. The crew generally spend more time in the FBO than the passengers so we need to ensure that they enjoy the same level of comfort. |BAM

Malaga Lounge

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Weylan Arnold, owner and President of City Plating, on transforming all sizes of business jet

Q: Weylan, when did you start the business?

WA: It was in October 2013. That was our first week in business. I bought an existing company and gave it a real focus on aviation.

Q: Do you do all sizes of jets, or just focus on the bigger aircraft?

WA: We take the view that no jet is too large for us, and no jet is too small. Our team has a vast amount of experience under our belts that allows us to take on projects of all sizes. We have done everything from Gulfstream and Bombardier business jets to Airbus airliners and Boeing 777s and 747s. We get a lot of requests for plating items that come off Gulfstreams, Beechjets and Cessnas.

If it flies we have probably touched the aircraft at one point or another.

Q: Does a lot of your work come from refurbishment houses?

WA: They are very big customers of ours. I would estimate refurbishment accounts make up about half of our business with OEM making up the other half. There are so many items that need to be made as good as new when you do a refurb. We’re talking cup holders, seat belt buckles and accessories like that. After we get through with the part you

“ Our team has a vast amount of experience under our belts that allows us to take on projects of all sizes. We have done everything from Gulfstream and Bombardier business jets to Airbus airliners and Boeing 777s and 747s.”

will never know that it is not brand new. We strip the part all the way down to the base metal and start again with the electroplating.

Q: How long does it take per jet to do this ‘make new’?

WA: We try to service everyone within a 7 to 14 day timeframe. The size of the project and the number of jobs in house can impact that number a little bit one way or the other but we keep everything revolving on that time frame. We send our customers an order acknowledgement statement as soon as we get the order in and inventoried letting them know what our timeline is looking like. If the timeline needs to be adjusted, we will work with our customers to meet their needs.

The orders come in from everywhere. Virtually every country that has an MRO shop or a refurbishment centre has sent parts to us. Stuff comes in from all over the world.

Q: You mentioned the vast experience of your staff earlier. Can you tell me a little more about that?

WA: Our team averages about 17 years of metal finishing experience, and are experts with nickel, chrome, gold, gold alloys, silver, and other precious metals. We rely on the team that has perfected their art to train our new members. It is next to impossible in our business to find staff with prior experience. You have to bring them in and train them. Once they are in, we try to make this the kind of company you want to stay in for your whole working life.

Q: What’s next, Weylan?

WA: I recently purchased two other businesses, namely Lou Martin and Associates and Technical Composite Corporation. The whole idea is to diversify our operations, so that we have more than just plating to offer.

Lou Martin designs and manufactures cabin shell kits as well as decorative window shade systems for the aircraft interiors market. Over their 46 years in business, they have developed a product portfolio for nearly every passenger airframe manufactured in the last 60 years.

“ Our team averages about 17 years of metal finishing experience, and are experts with nickel, chrome, gold, gold alloys, silver, and other precious metals.”

As an FAA approved Parts Approval Holder (PAH), their catalogue includes various PMA’s & STC’s for window shade systems and their installation.

Technical Composites have a very different business. They manufacture composite panels for the aircraft interior market. Their product catalogue includes: Flat Panels, vacuum formed shell kit panels, as well as various fiberglass support components.

Panel compositions include a varied array of lightweight materials including: Aluminium honeycomb for floors and cabinetry; as well as Nomex honeycomb & Divinycell widely used for shell kits and cabinet fronts for example. They have designs on file for panels ranging from 1/16” in thickness up to 1”.

We inherited a strong team of skilled employees between the two acquisitions. I knew both companies well enough to form the view that with the customers we already have, they would be a good fit. Those deals complete at the end of April, so this is very much new territory for us, though of course both companies are very experienced in what they do with over 70 year of industry experience between them. The acquisitions include the buildings and the land they sit on.

Q: With those acquisitions I imagine you are pretty confident that the current level of business in the sector is going to continue for the foreseeable future?

WA: Things are definitely very busy in business aviation right now. Business is good and I certainly hope it continues that way. I have a lot invested right now! |BAM

All of AERISTO’s inventoried leather articles have been Greenguard Gold certified and are sourced from premium South German bull hides. The picturesque region of Europe is known in the industry for its large, clean raw material ideally suited for high-end upholstery projects.

AERISTO has also become the go-to specialist for custom leathers- whether pertaining to color, texture or technical requirements. Design oriented services such as leather, quilting, perforating, embroidery and embossing are also done in-house for quick turnaround times.