A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Senior Editor

Curt Epstein

Gama Aviation has celebrated a milestone in its development of a new FBO/MRO complex at Sharjah International Airport in the UAE. While the company has been providing aviation services there for more than a decade from a previously existing structure, its space was constrained. Its plans to construct a purpose-built facility had stalled, however, due to a variety of economic factors during the global pandemic and its aftermath.
The company just completed a new 36,000-sq-m (387,500-sq-ft) parking apron at its 80,000-sq-m (20-acre) leasehold on the eastern side of the airfield. In the third quarter, it expects to break ground on a climate-controlled 14,000-sq-m (151,000-sq-ft) hangar—one of the largest in the region, capable of sheltering bizliners—along with a new VIP terminal. The hangar will house the company’s MRO, as well as provide storage for based and transient aircraft.
“It will give us the opportunity to scale up and review what MRO services we provide and improve that,” said Tom Murphy, managing director of Gama’s Sharjah location as well as its two UK facilities in Glasgow and the Isle of Jersey. “At the moment, we provide line maintenance to [Bombardier’s] Global series, Challengers, and Gulfstream’s G650, and we’ll be looking to expand on that outside of those airframes.”
Following the construction of the ramp, Gama will add a taxiway linking it to the runway, and move its airside services to a temporary facility there starting in September, while shuttling guests to its existing location until its replacement is completed in the second quarter of 2025. The old FBO facility will return to airport control.
“We believe what we will offer in Sharjah will be unique to the other facilities in the region,” said Murphy, adding that the emirate was the site of the UAE's first airport. “Over 40 years of operational experience has been synthesized into developing a business aviation center that offers a highly personal, tailored experience to discerning owners, their traveling associates, and flight crews.”

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Gama Aviation Completes First Part of New Sharjah Facility

The completion of a new 36,000-sq-m ramp marks a milestone in the development

Gama Aviation has celebrated a milestone in its development of a new FBO/FBO complex at Sharjah International Airport in the UAE. 

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