While millions watched the Baltimore Ravens defeat the San Francisco 49ers in the NFL Super Bowl in New Orleans on Sunday evening, the local FBOs at the Big Easy’s airports were gearing up for their own second half as many of the more than 800 private aircraft that flocked there would seek to depart soon after the game ended.
Lakefront Airport nearly reached its imposed limit of approximately 600 aircraft during the event, according to Louis Capo, executive director of the Non-Flood Protection Asset Management Authority that manages the airport. While the initial mix of aircraft was expected to be 70 percent small and medium business jets, the actual traffic to Lakefront airport included many more large-cabin business jets than anticipated, Capo noted.
Landmark Aviation said its FBO hosted approximately 325 aircraft, while FlightlineFirst saw 165 jets–nearly half of them large cabin–parked on its ramp. Hawthorne Global had 92 aircraft on its ramp at kickoff.
At Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, Signature Flight Support had 100 mostly large-cabin business jets on the ramp during the game, while Atlantic handled more than 350 aircraft over the four-day period and had 125 aircraft parked at game time, said a spokeswoman.
According to online flight data provider FlightAware, the two airports saw more than 700 general aviation departures in the 24 hours following the game’s final whistle.
Comments
C. David Buchanan (not verified)
February 6, 2013 - 5:13pm
Private (and/or business) aircraft are largely used for luxury entertainment, thus their purchase should NOT qualify for the tax incentives afforded revenue producing capital expenditures.
Chad Trautvetter
February 6, 2013 - 6:30pm
David, how about providing some facts to back your statement up?
Allow me to provide a few facts (there’s that word again) from the 2012 Fact Book from the National Business Aviation Association:
• Only about 3 percent of the approximately 15,000 business aircraft registered in the U.S. are flown by Fortune 500 companies, while the remaining 97 percent are operated by a broad cross-section of organizations, including governments, universities, charitable organizations and businesses – large, medium and small.
• Companies that use business aircraft outperform non-aviation users in several important financial measures, including annual earnings growth, stock and dividend growth, total share price, market capitalization and other financial yardsticks.
• Many companies use business aircraft to transport personnel and priority cargo to a variety of far-flung company or customer locations, including sites overseas. When companies need to immediately ship sensitive, critical or outsized equipment, business aviation is often the best solution.
• Companies and individuals, such as salespeople and doctors, use business aircraft to cover regional territories within several hundred miles of their home bases.
• Business aircraft often are used to bring customers to company facilities for factory tours, product demonstrations or sales presentations.
• 78% of the passengers that fly aboard business jets are not top-level executives. Instead they are middle and lower managers (50%), techical/sales/service (22%) and other non-executive/management personnel (7%). Companies often send teams of employees to a given destination on a business aircraft because it is the most cost-effective means of transport.
• Business aviation serves 10 times the number of U.S. airports (more than 5,000) served by commercial airlines (about 500). The ability to use smaller, less- congested airfields located closer to one’s final destination is a vital part of the utility and flexibility of business aviation aircraft. It means companies can stay or establish plants or facilities in the growing number of small towns or rural communities with little or no commercial airline service.
• Business aviation supports people and communities in crisis by flying people with illnesses to centers for treatment, transporting blood and organs to hospitals, connecting military veterans with their families, and providing emergency relief services to victims of natural disasters.
• Business aviation contributes $150 billion to U.S. economic output and employs more than 1.2 million people.
I eagerly await your reply.
Mike (not verified)
February 6, 2013 - 8:08pm
Chad, Very well said!!!! Its nice to see there are competent people out there.
Not sure why people waste their time viewing this website, if they hate everything aviation industry is all about....
Stephan Wilkinson (not verified)
February 6, 2013 - 6:19pm
Pretty funny. On the one hand, the bizav community gets on its high horse to joust with an administration that claims business aviation is largely about luxury, and on the other it delights in a photo of a Lakefront ramp jammed with jets.
What would we say if this photo appeared on the front page of the New York Times tomorrow, maybe with a caption about how nearly 700 bizjets "flocked" to "the biggest sporting event of the year"?
"Not me, boss, I wuz workin'..."
Mike (not verified)
February 6, 2013 - 8:13pm
The New York Times would some manage to link 700 bizjets, to the blizzard thats about ready to hit the northeast... And how they contribute to Global Warming / Climate change (terms change by the day).
Matt (not verified)
February 6, 2013 - 7:47pm
Obama and big government are desperate for money and they will tax everyone and anything.
Odinga Perreira (not verified)
February 9, 2013 - 11:38am
Obama must be doing something right when he regains the Presidency by a good majority and I might add that almost all people and countries looking in from the outside wanted him back in too.... But then again I might be biased.
America has a ways to go in sorting out there financial woes, and like the man said - it ain't gonna happen overnight. So suck it up and pay the taxes.