| Charters and Fractionals |
This year–as in years past– Farnborough attendees can expect a frustrating trip to the show, with gridlock between the venue and the M3 a near certainty. For attendees who want to avoid spending hours in the car, PremiAir is offering flights from the London Heliport in Battersea to the show site. The 20-minute flight in an executive-configured Eurocopter AS...
moreIf the FAA’s crackdown on charter operational control has taught operators anything, it’s that the number of compliance items that a Part 135 certificate holder must monitor, manage and triple-check has exploded. To help charter and even Part 91 and fractional operators meet all the requirements to ensure a flight is legal, the National Air Transportation...
moreFrance-based operator Azur Hélicoptère is considering offering helicopter connections between Lyon Saint Exupéry airport and the city’s convention center, which would involve building a helipad downtown. Overflights of populated areas are strictly regulated in Europe, so the operator would use the Rhône River as a route. Other links would be offered to and...
moreThe UFH, the French helicopter association, is studying how to relaunch scheduled flights among Paris heliport, a helipad in La Défense business district and Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. The idea is to prove the viability of such a service.According to Olivier Jouis, UFH executive director, the greater availability of IFR-equipped helicopters and the...
moreRecent enforcement actions against charter brokers using “unfair or deceptive” business practices have come under scrutiny, and some organizations are now pressing for government regulation. “The one industry that is not regulated is brokers,” Sentient Flight Group vice president of aircraft management Gil Wolin said this week at the Corporate Aircraft...
moreARG/US is publicly disputing claims made at the NATA Air Charter Summit held last week in Chantilly, Va., by the Air Charter Safety Foundation about its new industry audit standard. Russ Lawton, director of safety management for NATA’s ACSF, said the group had “very strong participation” from organizations such as Wyvern and ARG/US in creating the ACSF’s...
moreVery light jet air-taxi operator DayJet today signed an agreement with the FAA to start a five-year, phased implementation of proven NextGen technologies throughout Florida in collaboration with the Florida DOT Aviation Office and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. The government-industry partnership is tasked with developing replicable procedures that...
moreAlpha Flying and sister company Atlas Aircraft Center are holding a grand opening celebration this afternoon for their new aviation complex at Pease International Tradeport in Portsmouth, N.H. Due to space constraints, Alpha Flying moved in 2000 from Nashua (N.H.) Airport to Manchester (N.H.) Airport, taking with it the PlaneSense fractional aircraft...
moreOn Friday, National Air Transportation Association (NATA) president James Coyne criticized the FAA for issuing another emergency suspension order for a Part 135 operator, this time grounding Punta Gorda, Fla.-based aeromed transport company Air Trek. According to NATA, the FAA’s use of emergency suspensions calls into question fairness in regulatory...
moreBombardier’s Skyjet International executive aircraft charter program will be in safe hands with proposed new Swiss owner VistaJet, according to the Canadian aircraft manufacturer. Bob Horner, Bombardier’s senior v-p for sales, told AIN that the proposed sale would provide a solid base for VistaJet and for operators of the aircraft involved. Having confirmed...
moreSwift Aviation Group first made headlines eight years ago, following an announcement by Embraer that the Phoenix-based charter operator, sales and maintenance provider had become the launch customer for the Legacy. Since then, the company remained largely out of the spotlight until this past January, when Swift’s private air terminal at Sky Harbor...
moreThe Cirrus SR22 has been the world’s best selling single-engine aircraft for five years, with more than 3,000 sold to date. But the thought of using the SR22 for charter services is still relatively new. “It’s really the most cost-effective airplane we could offer,” said James Cooper, co-owner of Open Air. An average trip costs between $400 and $500 per...
moreThe recent launch of Sentient Flight Group’s Privatejets.com and Virgin Charter introduced a new element to the charter industry: the ability to book flights online using a process that mirrors that of airline and travel Web sites, such as Expedia and Travelocity. Scott Duffy, founder and CEO of Virgin Charter, said one customer completed an entire...
moreCharter provider ExcelAire has added another Embraer Legacy 600, bringing to three the Long Island, N.Y.-based company’s fleet of the Brazilian-built jets in service. Not included in that total is N600XL, the Legacy that survived the September 2006 midair that destroyed a Gol Airlines 737 over the Brazilian jungle. According to ExcelAire, that...
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