We have discussed the issues of traffic control workers and fatigue and sleeping on the job. Those concerns are continuing for the FAA, but not in the area of traffic controllers but in technicians. The FAA has been mostly concerned with pilots and most recently with flight control, but maintenance workers are also a big concern, The Federal Aviation Regulations state in pertinent part at part 121.377:
Maintenance and preventive maintenance personnel duty time limitations–states: “Within the United States each certificate holder (or person performing maintenance or preventive maintenance functions for it) shall relieve each person performing maintenance or preventive maintenance from duty for a period of at least 24 consecutive hours during any seven consecutive days or the equivalent thereof within any one calendar month.”
The FAA is offering a course called “Fatigue Countermeasure Training,” which addresses fatigue issues for mechanics and other maintenance technicians. This course can be taken online. We will see more of this as the issues are investigated to keep our aviation system safe. We continue to see examples where the industry will be tightening up to eliminate safety concerns.
There are over 9 million takeoff and landings every year in the United States and with all the news buzzing about the traffic controllers sleeping on the job the FAA says safety is on its list of things to take care of in the very near future. I have been inundated with press releases and information about what they are doing at the FAA and they are scrambling to get their procedures and protocols on the mend.
Ray LaHood is on a fever pitch of media pitches and has done hundreds of interviews the past couple of weeks. We are seeing many reports now of other violations and other incidents of controllers sleeping on the job. The secretary is stating that money is no object in correcting the problems. The government is cutting $4Billion for the budget of the FAA and he continues to state that this will not change their calling that they intend to make safety their priority. It is assumed they will have to cut in other areas if they intend to put two controllers in at least every tower to alleviate the problems with current issues of controllers sleeping on the job. We will have to see how this impacts other safety measures and if they can continue to put two controllers in each tower.
I just returned from our nation’s capital in Washington DC. I was recently attending the Points of Light Institutes’s Tribute for President George HW Bush and landing at Dulles I noticed the lack of many corporate jets. It seems that the economy makes it difficult to find the leaders of the country using private business aircraft. It may be the location that I landed or it may be that they are all traveling in other places or it could be that corporate jets are not welcome in that part of the world.
We all of course remember the tongue lashing the leadership of the car makers received when they took their private business aircraft to the capital when they were asking for the bailouts they received when the economy headed down. It may be that corporate jets are still a black mark or not well received. The National Business Aviation Association continues to combat these types of thoughts. It would be interesting to see if the trend continues or if we will see more private jets at airports in and around our nation’s capital.
There did seem to be no shortage of private helicopters flying in and around the city. I think it may be related to the way the traffic patterns are in the DC. I for one would have loved not to be caught in traffic on the highways and in the city.
It seems we continue to be dealing with the world in turmoil with the problems in the middle east, the economic troubles that ave hit our industry and now we have the issues coming out of Japan with the latest in the earthquake that has devastated the country and its people. I wanted to take a moment and ask that everyone give some aid or assistance to the people of Japan as they all try to dig out of the rubble that was caused by the earthquake and resulting tsunami. One company that I have worked with in the past is helping do all they can by helping to Save The Children.
This week I was contacted by the folks at Save The Children with the situation as they have been briefed about the children of Japan:
“We estimate that up to 100,000 children are displaced. Many children are staying in over 2,000 evacuation centers, some of which have no electricity or running water. Aftershocks still continue, as well as risks of further earthquakes and tsunamis. Children are in urgent need of psychosocial support so that they can deal with the events they have and continue to experience.”
Obviously, many people are faced with challenges and they are going to be facing these challenges for some time. We are seeing that the people of Haiti are continuing to have those same challenges now more than a year after their devastating earthquake. Japan has better infrastructure but they still have to recover and that takes effort, and of course donations.
I would love to have Save The Children meet their goal of $5Million for the relief and program for the children of Japan. You can do this very simply by going to the site and providing your support. You can also do this very simply by texting “JAPAN” to 20222 using your cell phone. This will allow you to donate as little as $10 to their efforts.
Take a moment and give your thoughts and well wishes to those in Japan dealing with the devastation and if you can give them some monetary support.
It was only a few years ago that Embraer was a minor player in the corporate jet industry with only a 3 percent share. It is making great strides recently in the business aviation industry having gained that number to nearly 20%. The company that is based in Brazil is taking the line of mid-size jets it manufactures in the Legacy 450 and 500 jets, the Phenom light jets and the Legacy 650 jets, Lineage 1000 jets to new levels that they hope will help them gain their goal of a 30% share of the business jet market.
Recently, the company opened a new final assembly facility in Melbourne, Florida, and the CEO of the company, Fred Curado indicated that he was very happy with the manufacturer’s position in the industry of business jets. In fact, he recently revealed that he hopes to expand further.
“I do see Embraer one day venturing into the ultra-long-range, large-cabin business jet segment,”he told AIN in an interview. He stated in that recorded interview, their line would compete “with the [Bombardier] Globals and the larger [Dassault] Falcons,” he said.
These are good signs of growth for the industry and it will be interesting to see if Embraer expands to the levels it seeks in the business aviation industry.
First of all, we here at Corporate Jet Insider and L&L International would like to say we are sending all our best wishes and thoughts to all the people having difficulties in the middle east no matter where you may be and we hope that everyone remains safe. The recent event sin the middle east have had sweeping effects on many industries and certainly have not missed business aviation.
We have been hearing good things from the business aviation world in the middle east as orders have been remaining steady and in some cases have increased n the middle east. Where the difficulties are now being seen is in the problems with oil prices. Oil is now over 100 dollars a barrel and this is having the same effects as it is for auto industry and the costs of goods. Jet fuel prices as also jumping and this is trickling down to the use of corporate travel and the use of business jets. We will be watching the industry and see how this may change in the short and long term. Our thoughts as stated are that we can overcome the middle east problems to make for a more stable business aviation industry.
The whole country was watching the 83rd annual Oscars last night in Los Angeles and I was curious if there was an increase in the number of private jets or corporate jets that flew in or out of the city. It seems that many private jet charter companies increase their advertising and their offerings for stars and VIP and executives that wanted to fly into the event in style. The issue there is most of those that are nominated or are attending the event already reside in the area.
There are some that are reporting that many stars that attended are now green since they didn’t charter private jets and didn’t upgrade their travel in and out of the show. Not much traffic at the local airports for them and that goes without saying since they are again living in the area. Many of those reported that are now more green for not flying in and out of Los Angeles didn’t report about their attending the Super Bowl festivities a few weeks ago. Congratulations to all the winners last night and now everyone will be headed home or to the next event, so perhaps corporate jet use will rise here in the next few days from the Hollywood area.
There are many ways that you can speak to us here at the Corporate Jet Insider. We at Corporate Jet insider are one way of contacting our corporate offices at L&L International too. We can be contacted most easily by calling us or contacting us on the contact page. We can also be contacted using the blog here by leaving a comment in any of the blog posts as though go right to our inbox. I also spoke earlier about our Facebook page and how it can be used to contact us and to interact with our company.
I also wanted to talk about Twitter. If you follow us over at Twitter, we will follow you back so that we may interact that way. As you may or may not know if two parties follow each other on Twitter, they can then sent direct messages to each other. We would be happy to take your direct message and make sure it gets into the hands of those that need to respond. That works as well with our live chat feature on the corporate site. Finally, if you want to sign up to receive the company newsletter and email, you can do that on our regular corporate site. Signing up with our email can get you company information and other industry news and information and the world of business aviation. Talk to us!
photo via derrickkwa
The FAA takes serious the regulations regarding maintenance of aircraft and this is reinforced by the FAA administrator. He stated:
“Keeping aircraft well-maintained and in good condition must be a top priority for any operator,” said FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt. “All operators must comply with maintenance requirements.”
The FAA released a recent news story related to the penalty it proposes that will be assessed against Corporate Air:
SEATTLE – The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is proposing a $585,725 civil penalty against Corporate Air of Billings, Mont., for allegedly operating a Shorts SD-3-30 twin-turboprop cargo aircraft when it was not in compliance with Federal Aviation Regulations.
The FAA alleges Corporate Air failed to maintain the aircraft under the company’s general maintenance manual, which requires daily post-flight inspections that include examining the exterior skin for corrosion. In addition, the maintenance manual requires structural inspections on the basis of flight hours or flights.
The FAA alleges that Corporate Air operated the aircraft in violation of regulations on at least 81 revenue flights between Dec. 21, 2009 and Feb. 4, 2010 with corrosion that had not been detected during the post-flight inspections. The FAA also alleges that structural inspections were not conducted at the required intervals, between Mar. 16, 2006 and Feb. 3, 2010, in violation of federal regulations.
Corporate Air operates charter and air taxi service under Part 135 of the Federal Aviation Regulations and makes daily feeder cargo flights under contract to a major next-day air package airline.
Corporate Air is afforded a period has 30 days from the receipt of the FAA’s enforcement letter to respond to the agency and state why it should not face the penalty that is being proposed.
They say if you continue to report good news that good news is bound to happen. This is not more apparent that in the world of business aviation or in the world of corporate jets. We are continuing to see reports of better news and of good numbers and of signs that the bad slide of the economic indicators in our industry. The recession has hit everyone in our industry and we are looking for the light at the end of the tunnel and recent news from JetNet, a corporate aviation and information analyst, give us that same upbeat opinion. These numbers were reported last month and give a good picture of the recovery. They report a better 2011 ahead and are also reporting that pre-owned jet sales will be stronger. It was reported by AIN:
“Pre-owned full-sale business jet transactions for 2010 were up by 16 percent, compared with 2009, and exceeded the 2008 transaction level by 4.8 percent. One reason for increased pre-owned sales can be found in a continuing decline in pricing, ranging from 1.5 percent lower for piston helicopters to 18.5 percent down for business jets versus 2009. According to the report, the percentage of jets for sale dropped for 16 months before the end of last year, from 17.7 percent to 14.8 percent. “So we still remain in a buyer’s market,” the report concluded. “A seller’s market is when 10 percent or less of the pre-owned inventory is for sale.” The percentage of turboprop business aircraft for sale as of December 31 was 10.5 percent, down from a peak of 12 percent set in May/June 2009. The percentage of turbine helicopters for sale (excluding Russian civil helicopters) was 7 percent, 0.1 percent higher than at the same point in 2009. A buyer’s market in the helicopter world is when the percentage of helicopters for sale exceeds 5 percent of the fleet. The report also noted the average number of days that a pre-owned business aircraft remained on the market in 2010 was 323 days–64 days more than in 2009.”
This report is good news for us in the pre-owned jet sales market, in spite of the report that we are in a buyer’s market. Any market uptake at this time and in this current economy can make it a better situation for the entire industry.
