Autumn 2021

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Autumn 2021

You may be reading these words at the NBAA-BACE show in wonderful Las Vegas. If you are, I hope the halls are thronged with visitors. But even if they aren’t, the event will have demonstrated one of business aviation’s greatest values – the ability to get the mission done.

The complexity of airline schedules, border controls and moving international travel goalposts will have kept many of us away. But with professional trip planning, flight support and access to a business jet, these global travel challenges may become no more that a minor inconvenience, rather than a show stopper.

Our cover star this time around, PRIMUS AERO has serious ambitions to match that global reach. It is typical of CEO Stephan Krainer that for the cover he chose a photograph showing the whole team. He aims to make PRIMUS AERO the world’s largest CAMO and he’s assembled a group of extremely capable, mostly young people – he describes them as ‘overachievers’ – to help him do so.

Meanwhile, as each week passes the aviation industry moves closer to achieving viable commercial operations with electrically-propelled aircraft. The vision is becoming reality, but as the aircraft mature it is increasingly obvious that the relative limitations electrical power places upon their performance means fuel-burning jet and turboprop aircraft are going to be with us for decades to come.

That being so, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is a key ingredient in aviation’s future, a fact recognised by Avfuel, which continues to roll SAF out at pace. The company provided a panel of executives to field EVA’s questions, among them President & CEO Craig Sincock. It’s clear from their wisdom that SAF is critically important to the industry, yet at the same time, Avfuel has a careful eye on electric and hydrogen propulsion, recognising the fact that today’s fuel companies are likely to be tomorrow’s energy providers.

We were delighted that Craig Sincock found time in his busy pre-NBAA-BACE scheduled to answer questions, and similarly honoured that Airbus Corporate Jets President Benoit Defforge, Bombardier President and CEO Éric Martel, and Gulfstream President Mark Burns also took the trouble, providing three exclusive interviews.
I began by mentioning the challenges that even the usually simple trip to Las Vegas from the UK poses in the current climate, challenges far more easily negotiated with the help of trip planning experts and aviation services providers. We take a look at two in this Autumn edition, Empire Aviation and HADID, both of which found their services in demand throughout the worst of the pandemic and continue to expand in the COVID-compliant era.

And there I’d normally finish, except to say that Bombardier has an announcement, on 14 September. If I wait to include the news, then you definitely won’t be reading these words at the show, because the magazine won’t make it in time. But that’s definitely a jet peeking through the hangar doors…

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