Kenn Ricci, a 30-year veteran of the private-aviation industry who founded Flight Options and is the principal of its parent company, Directional Aviation Capital, agrees with the widely held view that the industry’s recovery has been modest but nevertheless encouraging. “I think everybody hoped five years ago that 2013 would be significantly better than it […]
The annual European Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (EBACE), held in May in Geneva, served as the stage for Bombardier to present a new super-midsize jet and for Pilatus, a company that has been producing planes for more than seven decades, to announce that it was building its first jet. Also during the three-day event, […]
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Even if Bill Lear’s name had not become synonymous with private jets, he still would be an aviation-industry legend. Lear may have started out as just another high-school dropout with a passion for making radio receivers, but he had an unusually high IQ and could be monomaniacal about his tinkering, working so many hours that […]
Welcome as the economic recovery has been by the companies that supply private-aviation products and services—the aircraft makers, fractional-share and jet-card providers, and charter operators—the news may not be all good for customers. It certainly is not good for the clients of a pair of fractional-share providers that appear to have ultimately succumbed to the recession. […]
When Tony Hsieh, the CEO of online retailer Zappos.com, joined the board of directors for JetSuite in 2011, he wondered aloud why the Irvine, Calif.–based private-aviation company’s fleet of Phenom 100 entry-level jets had no Wi-Fi service. He urged JetSuite CEO Alex Wilcox to spend the money to upgrade the aircraft. Netjets had added Wi-Fi […]
Few, if any, flight-service providers have come out of the recession unscathed. Indeed, a number of once-thriving companies have shut down or minimized their operations (See “Two Sides to the Story,” page 30). But the good news for clients and prospective clients is that the companies that have survived are investing heavily in new aircraft […]
A number of highly anticipated personal aircraft appear to have survived the recession and are moving through their certification processes and toward production. Two personal jets (formerly known as very light jets), the HondaJet and the Eclipse 550, are almost ready to enter service. A third, Cirrus’ Vision SF50, has been revived by the company’s […]
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