North America-headquartered Flying Colours Corp. will be promoting its ADS – B Out expertise during NBAA- BACE 2019 – Booth C7215 – having performed nearly 50 ADS-B Out installations in the last 18 months. As the number of aircraft being equipped trends upwards avionics experts at both its Peterborough, ON. and St. Louis, MO. facilities are still anticipating a last-minute dash for ADS-B Out equipage as the 1 January 2020 mandate draws closer.
Equipage has already taken place on a wide variety of aircraft including Bombardier Global, Challenger, and Learjet types as well as Dassault Falcon, Embraer Phenom and Citation aircraft. As a Bombardier Authorized Service Facility Flying Colours owns ADS-B Out Supplemental Type Certificates (STCs) for the Bombardier Challenger 300, 604 and 605 aircraft. These STCs are also validated by EASA and TCCA. Sales of the STCs have ramped up in the last four months with more than 25 sold to other installation companies.
Flying Colours Corp. currently has 10 aircraft at the North American facilities undergoing equipage as part of wider maintenance or avionics upgrade projects, with a further 12 aircraft booked in before the end of the year. Significantly Flying Colours Corp. has seen a rise in demand from mid-to-large cabin owners and operators from corporate and private clients, while the number of small-cabin installations has remained stable.
Kevin Kliethermes, Director of Sales at Flying Colours explains most ADS-B Out installations have been part of a wider aircraft upgrade. “We help owners maximise budget and aircraft downtime by completing a number of different projects in parallel. Work on avionics, interiors, maintenance and paint can all take place in parallel at one of our facilities. For us the 1 January is not the end of the ADS B-Out mandate, but the beginning and we want to help the industry in North America and beyond be prepared for this important airspace management milestone, and the requirements of NextGen still to come.”
“The industry seems to be doing a good job of meeting demand for compliance with a good majority of aircraft now equipped, but we still think there will be a rush to the finish line. We’ve noticed an increased demand from owners and operators who regularly use their aircraft, and recognise they need to make sure they’re ready,” says Kevin Kliethermes, director of sales for Flying Colours Corp.
“We can accommodate a few more aircraft this year, but owners need to call quickly so that we can develop a compliance solution for their aircraft in time. If they don’t call us, they must call someone to avoid having their aircraft grounded post-deadline.”
Frankfurt Airport (FRA) welcomed some 6.7 million passengers – an increase of 1.3 percent year-on-year. Correspondingly, aircraft movements climbed by 1.7 percent to 46,713 takeoffs and landings. Accumulated maximum takeoff weights (MTOWs) also rose by 1.4 percent to more than 2.9 million metric tons. In contrast, cargo throughput (airfreight + airmail) shrank by 5.5 percent to 174,789 metric tons, reflecting the ongoing global economic slowdown.
In the January-to-September 2019 period, some 54 million passengers passed through Frankfurt Airport, representing an increase of 2.3 percent on the previous year. Growth was mainly driven by intercontinental traffic (up 3.4 percent), while European traffic grew at a slower 1.7 percent rate. Aircraft movements climbed to a total of 392,549 takeoffs and landings. Accumulated MTOWs expanded by 1.9 percent to almost 24.3 million metric tons in the reporting period. Only cargo volumes dropped by 2.9 percent to just under 1.6 million metric tons.
During the first nine months of the year, the airports in Fraport’s international portfolio registered mixed results. In September 2019, passenger traffic decelerated at most of Fraport’s Group airports worldwide. This can be attributed to the weaker global economy, as well as the bankruptcy of several airlines and tour operators – with other providers unable to fully absorb the additional capacity immediately.
From January to September 2019, traffic at Slovenia’s Ljubljana Airport (LJU) rose by 1.9 percent to some 1.5 million passengers in the first nine months of the year (September 2019: down 10.1 percent to 172,387 passengers). Fraport’s two Brazilian airports in Fortaleza (FOR) and Porto Alegre (POA) achieved combined traffic growth of 4.6 percent to over 11.3 million passengers (September 2019: down 5.4 percent to about 1.2 million passengers). Traffic at Lima Airport (LIM) in Peru advanced by 6.7 percent to some 17.6 million passengers (September 2019: up 7.8 percent to just under 2 million passengers).
