Plane Conversations

Maybe this most recent economic crisis wasn’t Armageddon, but I think I saw a Guernsey or two fall somewhere over central Mississippi.

The technology and practices of our industrial world are changing at a mind-boggling pace.  Since we started blogging just over a year ago, the advancements have been staggering, allowing us to begin developing a “wouldn’t-it-be-cool-if” idea into a “isn’t-it-be-incredible-that” reality.  However, if we had kept believing that we already knew it all, we would still be sitting on the porch, whittling, rocking in our chairs and wishing for a brighter reality. 

This Big Idea is a gamble, to be sure; Big Ideas always are.  But, to take our industry into its next great phase, we must accept that, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” We must reject bad managerial habits that keep us trapped in a paradigm which ceased to be profitable years ago.  Aircraft operators are frustrated by rising fuel prices, rising training costs, rising salary and benefits costs.  Equipment is getting older.  Remaining competitive means newer equipment, higher standards and better practices.  Meanwhile, many charter brokers insist on lower pricing, sometimes to the point of incorrectly educating the end-user on the actual cost of operating aircraft to the highest standards.  Sadly, even some operators have been willing to operate below cost just to produce the cash flow.  Reputable operators know what it costs to run a quality operation.  Reputable brokers also know this and are willing to support the operators’ reasonable pricing structures to their own clients.  But I digress.  My point is this: charter operators are frustrated with rates which are not keeping pace with rising costs.  Even with this frustration, we hamstring ourselves by acting conservatively out of fear of making mistakes and by avoiding anything new until it’s better understood.  Neither habit is bad altogether, but the over-application of either of them can be deadly. 

As I discussed the Big Idea with a few operators this week, I was discouraged at the response of many of them.  If the Idea is flawed, I would expect rejection and would hope that someone would point out the fatal flaw; but, that’s not why it was rejected.  Their rejection of the Idea stemmed from “I’ve never thought of that” and “We’ve never done it that way before,” not from the Idea’s merits or demerits.  It’s one thing for an industry to suffer or fail due to catastrophic and unforeseen market changes, but that isn’t the case here.  The market has been changing for at least the last 10 years.  As operators and brokers began aggressively selling one-way trips, introducing our product to a wider audience, the market has been changing.  As the global economy was reeling, our market changed further with more aggressive pricing, air taxi services, and ride sharing.  I often here people lamenting the loss of the “good old days.”  Let’s face it: the good old days weren’t all that great either.  We still struggled.  We still worked on narrow margins.  I don’t think we worked any less hard, but maybe we worked a little less creatively.

While we’ve gotten more creative, it’s time for us to make a big creative leap now.  Sharing flights is a creative way to broaden our market.  Using social technology to share those flights is a creative way to work smarter.  It’s the next Big Idea.

So, yes, 150 years ago, everybody knew man couldn’t fly.  70 years ago, everybody knew that supersonic flight was deadly.  And 15 minutes ago, you knew that shared flights would never work.   Once we accept that we don’t know our market as well as we think we do, we allow ourselves to adapt our industry to the new marketplace.  When we use social innovations like Social Flights to tap into that new marketplace, we broaden our reach.

If we can learn all of that today, embrace the Big Idea of flying socially, imagine what we’ll know tomorrow.

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An industry in crisis is an industry ripe for transformation.

America’s air travel system is in crisis. In response to rising fuel prices, air-space congestion and industry losses during the recession, airlines have cut capacity and raised rates. These challenges follow on the heels of delays and hassles that have cost the nation almost $33 billion in the past year alone, according to a recent study commissioned by the FAA / DOT.

Some blame the problems on government regulations over airlines and the lack of modernized air traffic control infrastucture. Others see the problem as dysfunctional management of the airline system.

Could it be that “the system of air travel” is being re-engineered before our eyes and all the current problems are part of the process?

I remember when airline travel used to be a social experience. Today it is anything but social, with the majority of passengers frustrated by the experience and loss of productivity.  Yet air travel is necessary for both leisure and business purposes.

How big is air travel and its impact on the economy here in the US?

Research from the US Travel Association says:

1. About 42 percent of U.S. adults reported traveling by air for leisure trips.  The percentage of air travelers increases to 48 percent among U.S. adults who traveled for business purposes in the past year.
2. A study by the U.S. Travel Association revealed a deep frustration among air travelers that caused them to avoid an estimated 41 million trips over the past 12 months at a cost of more than $26 billion to the U.S. economy.
3. Business travel in the U.S. is responsible for $246 billion in spending and 2.3 million American jobs; $100 billion of this spending and 1 million American jobs are linked directly to meetings and events. For every dollar invested in business travel, businesses experience an average $12.50 in increased revenue and $3.80 in new profits.
4. The Internet was used by approximately 90 million American adults to plan travel during the past year with 76 percent of online travelers planning leisure trips online.

The Social Market of Travel Is Hot Every other day or two, you hear about a new travel app, a travel related company, or a mega travel player partnering, acquiring, or developing the next industry killer app. Consider some of the recent developments in the travel space over the last year:

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Knowledge is power.  It’s not what you know, but what you do with what you know that matters. 

Enter social media, web 2.0, wikinomics, the digital age, the Google era-whatever you would like to call it.  The power of this enormous infrastructure and way of life, the power of social media is the sharing of knowledge by wise leaders. 

Let me briefly explain–Google shares information, but it certainly isn’t wisdom.  On the other hand, your friend, who has been listening to a podcast about a certain subject for a year now, knows you are looking for a new job in a related industry.  He knows that the host of the podcast is great friends with a guy in that industry.  A tweet is sent with a link to the podcast… Knowledge has been applied.  Wisdom has been shared.  Now connections have been made.

Enter video.  YouTube is probably the most widely known video social media channel, but there are many.  Here is an example:

What did you see? Probably a lot of things.  Did you see an acrobatic flight from the “bird’s eye” view of the pilot? A pilot getting his first lesson could learn a lot about the cross check…looking outside at the wingtips to maintain attitude, back and forth, now forward at airspeed.  These are the kinds of things that can only be learned in real time.  It’s challenging, even for an experienced flight instructor to explain this inverted.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is video worth?

Did you see Johnny’s house in the early frames of the video, just to the far side of the brown field off the nose? How cool would it be for Johnny to see his house from that angle?! Even more exciting would be real time streaming video integrated into the flying video game on his HD TV.

Imagine a student pilot getting ready to go on his first cross-country flight.  The weather between here and the destination is forecasted to be VFR, but there is a slight chance it could deteriorate.  So he types in the web address for a new, video-based “Sky Maps” website, and sees that another pilot has just flown along that route.  By clicking on the airplane symbol on the “Sky Map,” a video is cued.  Student Pilot can now see the weather for himself, adding some knowledge to his decision-making process, painting a picture to supplement the weather forecast.

Did you see the weather off to the east in the video? Scientists could tap into a wealth of data to update meteorological models, validate predictions, understand these complex (and still quite mysterious) phenomena even better.

Did you see the turbulent airflow off of the upper wing? I didn’t either, but it won’t be long until a high-tech lens attachment the size of a dime gives Schleren photography capability to this portable video cameras.  In fact, the future holds a camera that looks wherever the pilot points it and captures images at any bandwidth in the spectrum of light.

One last application for the test pilots among us - the pilot was moving his head, large movements, and a lot of them, in other words, high frequency and high amplitude.  This data would certainly contribute to an understanding of the workload during this phase of flight.  At this point in the evolution of the technology, we don’t need six sigma certainty that it’s high workload.  We have a definitive qualitative understanding that it is.  The technology will mature, and the way we use it to collect quantitative measures of what has been previously subjectively evaluated should mature as well.

That’s what the future looks like…in HD.

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It has been a couple weeks since I last posted on Plane Conversations.

I usually don’t go this long without checking in but the past few weeks of travel to China, and then being part of a conference back in TN, have kept me running with little time to slow down and write.

This week I was part of a conference hosted by Middle Tennessee State University and sponsored by our company and FedEx.

The purpose of the conference was to get people together from China and the US who work in the government and private sectors of aviation to dialogue and exchange knowledge on the developments and trends in General Aviation in China.

From China we had a delegation that consisted of officials from CAAC (China’s FAA), legal scholars from the Beihang University of Aerospace and Aeronautics, industry executives from Flying Dragon Aviation China, the largest general aviation company in China, as well as China’s official news agency Xinhua. Erick Wang, CFM’s VP of our newly formed CFM China Company, was also in attendance. Erick is from Harbin, in Heilongjiang Province, Northern China.

From the US side, attendees included senior level FAA/ATC, AOPA’s International Affairs Director, representatives from FedEx’s international legal affairs and international feeder operations, MTSU aerospace professors, Chuck Howell, CEO of Great Lakes Airlines, executives from BAE Systems and Cirrus Design.

Mike Vaughn who is President of CFM China and Director of Government Sales for CFM here in the US was the conference moderator.  

This is my first experience with co-hosting and sponsoring a conference of this magnitude and I now have a new found respect for those who organize these type events. Hundreds of hours and months of planning and preparation go into an event like this, especially when trying to coordinate schedules, logistics and visas for delegates coming from the other side of the world.

Many thanks to the Aerospace Department at MTSU for hosting this conference at their facilities at the Murfreesboro Airport, and thanks to FedEx for being the major sponsor.  

My post conference impressions about what was learned and gained center around relationship building.

Nothing replaces face to face dialogue and some of the more important interactions happened, not at the speaker’s podium, but at the dinners and social times when conversations between the Chinese and US delegates was relaxed and informal in nature.

Our new aviation friends from China are no different than aviators here in the US. They are passionate and knowledgeable about their profession and have a sincere desire to learn. Aviators around the world share a common bond that trumps any cultural or political differences.  

The Chinese are very intent on growing their industry in China. They have been restrained by restrictions on use of airspace by the PLA, but nonetheless they know what they are doing.

The Chinese recognize that they need to open up their airspace for commercial activity including GA. Their government now recognizes that a healthy general aviation industry is good for economic development and prosperity in China. The country and the government are massive and opening the skies will not happen overnight, but it will happen. Before laws are enacted, policies and procedures will be put into place to allow more GA operations in the skies.  

The Chinese also recognize that the US has one of the most developed and successful aviation systems in the world and there is much to be gained by learning from both the successes and mistakes of our long history in aviation. They have a unique opportunity to leapfrog many of the inefficient systems we have and go straight to the best practices and advanced technology of today and the future.

GA in China today is small relative to the country’s economy, geography and population, so it will not take much to steer the industry quickly into a world class player.

China has done it in many other areas of their economy, first in manufacturing, now in technology and communications, and in the past two decades in the airline industry. Once the ball gets rolling in general aviation it will be fascinating to see how it develops. In my lifetime I may get to see China surpass the US in GA activity.  

The US, Brazil and Europe, with advanced GA aircraft design and manufacturing capability, expertise in operating and maintaining GA aircraft, and capabilities in training pilots, mechanics, and operations management, stand to gain in a big way as China’s GA takes off.

I believe those in the US who are willing to look at the long term, and develop relationships now, will see the payoff in 5-10 years when the door opens wider.

One of the senior delegates from China conveyed to me words of wisdom that relationships, trust and friendships must be developed first and business will naturally follow. That sounds very much like the way the US used to do business before we got in a hurry to make a quick dollar. I personally enjoy this way of doing business because it is more than just today’s profit that counts. The personal relationships come first.  

I have new found friends from China that I believe will be friends for life.   

We will write more about this conference in future blogs and an official press release.    

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As a quick background, I am a very blessed guy, husband to a wonderful wife, father to two beautiful daughters. After serving in the United States Air Force for 20 years, then running a technology company, I had to figure a way to make a good living doing what I love – working around and flying airplanes.

So, armed with a lot of enthusiasm, I bought a flight school and partnered with Corporate Flight Management (CFM) in the process. Not long after that, I started a charter and aircraft management business, Harmony Air.

There are many, many great CFIs (Certified Flight Instructors) and pilots out there; but, sometimes location, hard work and fate help things along. That’s part of this story.  You see, I happened to teach Tim McGraw’s business manager to fly some years ago and sure enough not long after, I began teaching Tim to fly in a Cirrus SR22 , which I provided at our Cirrus Training Center at the John C. Tune Airport in Nashville. Like every, pilot he’s still learning but he does have his Private Pilot License and, between movies, albums, concerts, being a dad and husband, is working on his instrument flying.

Tim and I have flown to some pretty interesting places.  I was fascinated to be able to fly to the NFL Kickoff in New Orleans and to see the game from a suite. Trust me, this is not the typical CFI gig.  Now we are embarking on a really great adventure, Tim’s concert schedule has him touring in Australia and, you guessed it, I’m on my way there right now. And I am fortunate that my wife and youngest daughter are with me. My oldest daughter is in nursing school and could not miss a day, much less two weeks.

It has been a really long time since I’ve flown on a commercial flight; but, so far, American Airlines has treated us very well.  But, $10 for a sandwich?!  Really?!  As I write this, we’re sitting at the International Terminal at LAX awaiting our 16+ hour flight to Sydney and then on to Brisbane. It’s in Brisbane where I’ll get my SR22 check-out at the only Cirrus Training Center in Australia.  I’m looking forward to meeting Steve Maltby, the owner there.

A word of advice, before you go to Australia to rent a plane, do your homework. I began mine two months ago and there are still some issues I’m counting on Steve to help me resolve for my 90-day license to fly.  I plan on using that license to fly between concert venues in Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne.

Stay tuned for more news, pics and video……

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I recently finished reading Falcon 7 – the new novel by best selling author James Huston. His last book, Marine One, made the NYT best seller list. I needed to try out my I-Pad book reader and Apple has this title in their bookstore so this was the book to try out the I-Pad reader.

James Huston takes aviation, international law, and the world of military special ops intrigue and weaves a story that will not let you put the book (I-Pad) down until you are finished.

The name for the book comes from the new long range business jet the Falcon 7X, manufactured by French company Dassault Falcon. The Falcon 7X is the culmination of state-of-the-art technology in business jet manufacturing and has a non-stop range of 5950 nautical miles at high cruise speeds. The aircraft incorporates fly-by-wire technology that has usually been reserved for airline class aircraft.

The Falcon 7X plays an important role in the book, a role revealed in the first few pages, and it continues to play a part in the plot as the story progresses.

For aviation lovers, the book includes great scenes involving helicopters, low level flying, FA-18 fighters and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.

James Huston is an attorney with a practice in international and aviation law. He was also a Top Gun Naval aviator and flew the F14. He has used his knowledge of aviation and law to tell the story that will keep you spellbound and will convince you that this could really happen..  

The book starts with an FA-18 over the skies of Afghanistan on what was to be a routine mission. While on their flight back to ship, the crew is diverted to a target across the border in Pakistan. After making what was assumed to be a bomb drop on a terrorist meeting site, things start to go wrong, the aircraft is shot down and the crew ejects.

I won’t go farther in the story and give it away. If you like aviation and you like to read Grisham novels you will love this book.

Buy it in the airline terminal or at the Apple Book Store on your I-Pad and it will get you through a long stay in the terminal or a cramped and boring international flight.

You will wish you were in the back of the Falcon 7X instead of the coach seat in the back of the Boeing; but, you will not want to go where the Falcon 7X takes the characters in this story.

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In college, I took a class called International Strategies and Security.  I believe that I may have been the only non-military student in the class which, for a civilian, turned out to be like a Tom Clancy novel – only it lasted for a whole semester.  We discussed technology that just blew my mind.  I had no idea the things that were possible and I’m sure that what blew my mind then is Stone Age compared to what is possible now.

So yesterday, we talked a little bit about test flights Alaska Airlines is conducting to be greener both environmentally and economically.  I think that there is a lot to celebrate with that.  My one concern with their reliance (and more, with NextGen’s reliance) on satellite technology is the increase in solar storms projected over the next few years.  I am curious to see how the technologists will handle it.

Since the systems do rely on satellite communication, they will be vulnerable to solar flares and storms, the kind we discussed back in March, which brings me back to the same concerns I expressed then.  With so many new pilots being trained using only glass cockpits and satellite approaches, what happens when those systems are compromised?  Worse, what happens when those systems are compromised and the pilots don’t know it?  NextGen, RNP, OPD and RVSM (Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum) are all designed to increase efficiency by tightening up the airspace.  This precision puts more aircraft into smaller spaces.  Well, if a pilot was flying along a flight path ten years ago, he might have encountered another aircraft along the same path; but, since neither of them was flying with today’s degree of precision, there was still likely to be a safe distance between the aircraft.  However, with todays’ greater precision, the space is greatly reduced.  If all systems are operating as advertised, that’s no problem.  In fact, it’s positive situation.  However, if solar flares contaminate the positioning information, an aircraft may be hundreds of feet off position and not know it.  If two aircraft are in the same situation, but are separated by only a few hundreds of feet to begin with, well, you do the math.

The Federal Aviation Administration recently awarded $125 million to Boeing and other companies to develop greener aircraft, fuels and technology.   As aircraft become more advanced and the Gee-Whiz factor in them increases, by definition, they get further away from the simple, stick-controlled Stearman.  I love the advances, don’t get me wrong.  I just know that a great many young pilots are learning on advanced equipment and may not be learning some of the manual basics of their predecessors.  For now, the young group still has access to pilots trained without all of the gizmos.  Those pilots are available to act as mentors and assist the younger generation of aviators in gaining some wisdom, an invaluable asset, as Billy Minkoff pointed out last week.  His example of the new, accessible very light jet and microjet is perfectly appropriate here.  As precision flying gets more precise and pilot training gets further removed from non-precision equipment, without mentoring, how do we avoid the dangers of corrupted satellite data?

What technology and training do we develop to slow or halt the current trend as expressed by CFM Director of Operations Dwayne McMurry, “It used to be that the last words on a cockpit voice recorder were ‘Oh, (explicative)!’  What you hear these days is, ‘What’s it doing now?’ “

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Starting in 2004, UPS began systematically saving money on fuel and reducing emissions, in part, by planning their routes and reducing the number of left turns in them.  About 15 minutes after the policy was first reported, the first skeptical “Bah!” issued forth.  The report was taken to mean that drivers were instructed to make only right turns, which is inaccurate.   Routes are planned to reduce the number of left turns (in countries that drive on the right-hand side of the road), thereby reducing the amount of time spent idling in the turning lane.  Other interesting measures were put in place, as well; so, the exact dollar amount of savings attributed just to right turns is hard to quantify.  Still, the increased efficiency and lower fuel costs are easy to see.  And, none of the measures were rocket science, really, just simple, common sense practices used to save money.

NextGen ATC has the potential to act like the route planning software that UPS uses, allowing aircraft to fly more direct routes, thus saving time and fuel while reducing emissions.  However, as we’ve previously discussed, that program is stalled while most of the parties who will benefit from it bicker over who will pay for it.  In the interim, Alaska Airlines is testing some other programs in their Greener Skies project at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, one reason the Wall Street Journal  named the carrier the most fuel efficient in the country.

Using satellite-based guidance technology (Required Navigation Performance or RNP) that they pioneered , the carrier has tested its use in landings.  Using the technology with a continuous descent or optimized profile descent (OPD), the aircraft can descend from cruise altitude to runway using a shorter flight path and lower power.  What they found by using these principles is that they reduced their landing fuel-burn by about 35%, which translates to about 400 pounds or 60 gallons per event.  The carrier estimates that they could save 2.1 million gallons each year by using this system.  On 13 August 2010, Jet-A prices ranged from $4.72 per gallon in Smyrna, Tennessee, to $6.98 in Boston.  While carriers don’t buy their fuel at those prices, you can still imagine the huge amounts of money that could be saved. 

The more direct flight path and lower power do more than result in just lower fuel-burns.  Those lower burns translate into lower carbon emissions and lower noise levels.  According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Alaska Airlines estimates an emissions reduction of “22,000 metric tons each year, the equivalent of taking 4,100 cars off the road.”  And, of course, a more direct route sends aircraft over fewer homes and lower power means less noise for those homes still in the approach path.  That’s great news for busy airports’ neighboring communities that are concerned with noise and air pollution levels.

A great many of the aircraft currently flying already have the technology to use these same procedures.  ATC has to catch up and redesign the approaches to make the best use of the technology, equipment and procedures.  The potential good the aviation industry can realize by the more efficient process is enormous.  With decreased costs, the industry can produce a healthier bottom line.  And with decreased air and noise pollution, we can all breathe a little deeper and sleep a little more peacefully.

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When most people think of UAVs, they think of the attack drones used in Afghanistan and Iraq, such as the Predator and Reaper. These are large aircraft with wingspans up to 65 feet and weighing over 10,000 pounds. However, there are only a few aircraft types of this size that are currently in production. The vast majorities of UAVs are much, much smaller and designed to perform a plethora of different missions. Some UAVs are so small that they can be launched by hand and are no larger than a bird. The implications for this new breed of air vehicles to the aviation industry are enormous.

Hopefully, we will never have the need for widespread use of Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles (UCAVs) in the United States civilian airspace. Instead, UAVs will allow aviation operations to expand into amazing new arenas that were once only seen in science fiction films. Perhaps one of the greatest advantages of a small UAV is the ability to fly undetected within close range of people and equipment on the ground. This has particular benefits for the law enforcement industry which is waiting eagerly to be able to use UAVs for surveillance in urban high-crime areas.

Looking past law enforcement applications for UAVs, there are virtually unlimited potential uses for unmanned flight and new roles are being discovered every day. Some of these applications might include pipeline surveys, air pollution sampling, endangered species monitoring, aerial searches for mineral deposits or oil, water body temperature surveys, and the list goes on and on. The aviation industry needs UAVs because they will provide vast new opportunities for new companies, new jobs, and new technological development. It would be shortsighted to think that UAVs are a fad and will pass in time. Unmanned civilian flight is coming and it is the role of the aviation industry to maximize the potential of this diverse new technology.

This may very well be one of those crucial turning points in technological history where one can either resist new technology only to be left behind or embrace the advances and lead the pack into unexplored territory. Who knew that the internet would change the entire world? We may someday look back and wonder how we ever lived without the marvels of unmanned flight. My point is: unmanned flight will likely affect your life in some way, whether you are a pilot, mechanic, aviation manager, or just someone interested in aviation. I encourage you to look for ways to help make unmanned aviation a positive influence on the aviation industry and not resist the inevitable with unfounded negativity. This does not mean that you have to “like” the idea of unmanned flight, but I would encourage that criticism at least be constructive.

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Business aviation has taken a beating in the past two years.  While we are now seeing some signs of recovery, we must remember that those signs do not constitute prosperity. We can blame industry difficulties on the government or on the economy, but the reality is that we need to quit following the old business models. In many areas, we are doing things today just as we have for the past 30 years.

If we look to the technology sector of our economy as a possible success story to emulate, we see a constant flow of innovation in the market. Computing technology gets not only faster and more productive by the day, but it also gets cheaper. Social Technology has taken on a life of its own with changes happening faster than even the social media gurus can keep up with.

Those of us in aviation know that we cannot change or innovate as fast as the technology sector of this economy. Or can we?

When it comes to the aircraft design and regulation compliance that make our industry safer, admittedly we cannot go any faster than the government allows. New aircraft designs are also limited by the allocation of capital and have long cycles from initial investment to development to payoff. The tech sector can crank out new smart phones every six months, but we can’t just crank out new jets that fast.

Aircraft design and safety compliance timing may be out of our control, but that should not stop us from innovating.

Innovation starts with conversations. Doc Searls coined the term “the market is conversations” in his 1999 book The Cluetrain Manifesto.  With consumers self-aggregating and expressing intentions online, why can’t we engage in the conversations and meet those intentions?

We need to expand our market by engaging the larger audience of travelers in conversations about the value proposition of business aviation and even leisure travel by private aircraft. It starts online these days and ultimately moves to face-to-face contact.

We also need to challenge our market and our industry to start conversations on how to deliver business aviation at a reduced cost. The solutions must come from the entire supply chain, with everyone involved in business aviation as a part of the solution.

I have yet to hear anyone say they would like to go back to riding on the airlines after experiencing travel on a private aircraft.  What I have heard, hundreds of times, is that they can’t afford what we offer; so, they grudgingly go back for more of the misery of air travel by mass transit.

What are we going to do about it?

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