The agreement will not affect the protest NAATS filed in March contesting the FAA's decision to award the flight service station contract to Lockheed Martin. NAATS joins the employee-based Most Efficient Organization (MEO) in contesting the decision. The FAA had until April 29 to respond to the protests. NAATS has also filed an age discrimination suit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., alleging that the process infringes upon employees' rights and benefits.
Carol Carmody left the NTSB on April 1, after serving as a member for nearly five years. Carmody joined the Safety Board in June 2000 and served as vice chair from 2001 to 2003. She also served as acting chair during that time. Before joining the NTSB, Carmody was the U.S. representative to ICAO and a staff member on the Senate Commerce Committee.
CAE SimuFlite has named Rani Hobgood and Danielle Grieco winners of its training scholarships awarded through Women in Aviation International. They will begin training this summer at CAE SimuFlite's Dallas/Fort Worth, facility.
Boutsen Aviation, owned by Formula 1 race car driver Thierry Boutsen, has become an Embraer Legacy authorized sales agent to cover the Benelux countries, the Principality of Monaco and the French Cote d'Azur. Founded in 1997 and headquartered in Monaco, Boutsen has a subsidiary in Luxembourg.
ARINC was selected to provide its advanced flight planning services for Air Training International, which provides initial and recurrent international operations training for general aviation pilots. ARINC Direct flight planning service is based on the Sabre flight-planning engine and offers options including quick-file, advanced route planning, coded departure routes, slot request, participation in collaborative decision-making and data-linking.
Single-engine turbine IMC operations could become legal in Europe this year according to Bob Crowe, owner of the U.K.'s Cessna Caravan dealership. ``It is hoped that the JAA [Joint Aviation Authority] committee meeting in June will follow the example of ICAO, which published Chapter 5, Annex 6 in March 2005 allowing SE Turbine IFR operations, by approving the commercial use of SE Turbine powered aircraft for both passenger and cargo work,'' said Crowe. Some European States already allow single-engine turbine operations in IMC.
Bombardier Aerospace named ExecuJet Aviation Group as the exclusive sales representative for its Challenger 300 and Learjet family of business jets in Germany. Under the sales representation agreement, ExecuJet will work closely with Bombardier's European sales team, which is headed by Bob Horner, Bombardier Business Aircraft's vice president of sales. Together, they will offer aircraft sales, in-house charter, aircraft management and operational support.
It was a plunge not witnessed before in the history of the business jet. From the record high sales point in late 1999, the business jet market plummeted 38 percent in less than four years, as though trapped in a microburst below a super-cell thunderstorm. Dragged down by the falling U.S. economy in the wake of 9/11, business aircraft operators in distress attempted to unload their airplanes into a market unwilling to buy them. By third quarter 2003, more than 2,000 business jets, one in six aircraft in the active fleet, had ``for sale'' signs taped to their noses.
NTSB Acting Chairman Mark Rosenker emphasized the importance of medical screening for vehicle operators who may have undiagnosed sleep disorders. The remarks came at the beginning of National Sleep Awareness Week (March 28 -- April 3), during which the NTSB hoped to raise public awareness of its ongoing concern about fatigue-related safety issues. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that sleep disorders such as insomnia, sleep apnea and restless legs syndrome affect 50 to 70 million Americans.
Affonso's first act was to announce the certification of the Embraer Legacy business jet for operations at 41,000 feet. Other Legacy upgrades included high-speed data with Wi-Fi, and a new standard interior design. In the works for 2005/2006 are high-altitude/short-field landing, fully paperless EFB, LED interior lighting, and EVS. Affonso also announced three new Legacy sales representatives: Harrods Aviation of the United Kingdom, Nature Link of Africa and Boutsen Aviation of Belgium.
The FAA plans to boost the staff in its aviation safety office by 97 in fiscal year 2006, but this will only partially cover the 300 positions lost to budget cuts in fiscal 2005. The further staff reductions will be achieved through attrition, FAA officials say. The agency also said the smaller staff means it will have to be more careful in setting priorities for certification work.
Liberty Aerospace, which is developing the new XL2 single-engine aircraft, will open new sales offices this month at Addison Airport near Dallas, Texas, and at the Hagerstown, Md., Airport. John Hurst, the former general manager for Europa Aircraft's North America office, will head the Addison office and Peter Lehmann will run the Hagerstown operation. Lehman, who spent six years as a Blackhawk helicopter crew chief in the U.S. Army, most recently was assistant chief flight instructor and marketing manager for King Aviation-
Digital Cyclone has expanded its Pilot My-Cast aviation weather information service to provide access to owners of data-enabled cellular telephones. The service is available through major providers, including AT&T/Cingular, Sprint PCS, Verizon, Nextel, T-Mobile, Alltel, Southern LINC, US Cellular and Midwest Wireless. Pilot My-Cast Version 4.0 provides information for specific airports or routes with color displays of weather information and maps.
Banyan Air Service, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., promoted Lynn Juengel to technical services manager. Juengel has been with Banyan for 10 years. Bill Garghill has joined Banyan as the new director of customer service responsible for front desk, fuel, ground support and operation at the firm's Executive Airport facility.
Jet Aviation headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, recently received the International Star Diamond Award from the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences. The award is given each year to honor a company that demonstrates a commitment to excellence in luxury and service within its category and classification.
Productivity is the essential quality for making a profit in the regional airline industry, and as one leading airline executive put it, ``You build from profitability, not to profitability.'' Productivity is derived from operating cost, block-to-block speed, runway field performance, passenger and freight capacity, and the versatility to operate profitably over widely ranging mission distances.
On April 1, Peter Bunce, late of the U.S. Air Force, reported for duty as GAMA's new president. Bunce succeeds Ed Bolen, who left GAMA in 2004 to become president of the NBAA. Ron Swanda, GAMA senior vice president of operations, had served as interim president. The GAMA search committee wanted someone familiar with Capitol Hill, and Bunce certainly qualifies. He spent three years as the Air Force liaison to the House of Representatives, with an office in the Rayburn House Office Building, and the last three years of his 26-year Air Force career as director of the U.S.
``Dave, I'm beginning to doubt your dedication to the mission.'' -- HAL 9000 / 2001: A Space Odyssey When full-up synthetic/enhanced vision systems begin to chalk up operational history, their terrain databases will come to life, growing and correcting themselves as errors are detected and the landscape changes.
The AOPA has endorsed the FAA's plan to eliminate many NDB approaches, but urged the agency to retain 57 approaches that the association believes are still necessary. On March 3 the FAA published a list of 479 NDB approaches that it would like to eliminate and would apply cost savings to increase the number of Wide Area Augmentation System-capable area navigation [RNAV] instrument approach procedures.
ExcelAire added a Gulfstream IV-SP and a Gulfstream III to its charter fleet. The additions increase the Ronkonkoma, N.Y.-based charter's fleet of Gulfstream aircraft to nine. ExcelAire also added two Hawker 800s to its fleet. The Hawkers are based at Republic Airport in Farmingdale and at Long Island MacArthur Airport in Islip. The ExcelAire fleet also includes Citation and Learjet aircraft and Sikorsky, Bell and Eurocopter helicopters.
On the other hand, Stone's departure could be part of a larger Department of Homeland Security reorganization with the possibility that the TSA might be stripped of its policy-making duties and turned into a strictly operational organization. Under this scenario, policy decisions, such as the plan to reopen DCA to general aviation operations, would come under the purview of the DHS leadership.
Sentient Jet, a charter membership brokerage concern, acquired Atlantic Aviation Flight Services from the private equity firm Voyager Group. Pittsburgh, Pa.-based Voyager acquired Atlantic in March 2003 after Atlantic Aviation Corp. decided that it wanted to focus on the FBO business. Voyager CEO James Dolan called the sale ``highly positive for all involved. The demand for service created by Sentient's customer-focused business model requires additional capacity, which Atlantic provides.
