For reasons unimportant here, I look at a lot of airport websites because they are a primary communication channel for anyone who uses or is interested in learning more about them. So I’m on the Airport Information page of the Centennial Airport website the other day, and a large subhead — 2008 Economic Impact Study — catches my eye.

Hmm. There’s a link I don’t ever remember seeing on another airport’s website. After clicking on — and gleefully reading — the treasure chests of information, I wondered if Colorado was the only state that conducted such surveys. Nope. A Google search revealed that most state aeronautic departments regularly conduct airport economic surveys.

So why don’t more airports make use of this information? Or, am I just missing it because it’s buried somewhere in an airport’s website?

Read the rest of this entry »

One thing you never want to do is give me a book to review. I read them quickly, but often take forever to getting around to telling people what I thought of the experience, which pretty much defeats the purpose of the review … at least from the stance of the author. And I ought to know, I’ve written a few books myself. Tardiness of writing has little to do with the quality of the books I read, certainly not this one.

My cohort in crime Scott Spangler told me about this book – Artful Flying by Michael Maya Charles and Artful Publishing – with the comment that he often finds himself rereading the volume from time to time. Now I understand why Scott spends time with a book he’s already read. After I finished Artful Flying, I realized I’d pretty much destroyed the volume for anyone else because I’d marked the thing up by underlining sentences and using a yellow marker in places to remind me of why I enjoyed a particular chunk of text.

Artful Flying will bust your chops if you’re simply an airplane driver because it talks to readers about the philosophy of flying the way the old guys – and girls – used to do it. No, the physics of flying hasn’t really changed, but the art of flying has, at least in the sense that flying as an art seems to have a lot of its luster over the past 20 years.

Michael Maya Charles talks not simply to how to fly, but how to smoothly finesse an aircraft – any aircraft – with the skill of an airman who is never satisfied with pretty good. An artful flyer is someone who is in the never ending struggle for perfection, much like an ice skater, a painter or even a NASCAR driver.

Read the rest of this entry »

The politician is an amazing form of life, a shining example that the only reliable human constant is inconsistency–especially when it comes to aviation, specifically smaller airplanes and their airports. Some, like those from Nebraska, get it, and others, like those in Ohio, do not (or they’ve never taken the time to learn).

In Ohio’s general revenue budget the House gave small airports (like Dayton’s Wright Brothers Airport) $1.2 million a year for improvements and inspections. The Senate cut these funds to help make up a roughly billion dollar shortfall. The Springfield News-Sun article didn’t say what else the Senate would cut to make up the remaining $997.6 million. The senate did leave a few bucks in the rail and transit budget, and the Ohio DOT is going to see if it can transfer some of that to the airports.

Measured by a story in Sidney Sun Telegraph, Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson gets it. He just introduced the Small Airport Relief Act of 2009. If passed, it would ensure current federal funding levels for rural airports to help them remain stable during the economic downturn. As quoted in the article:

“Rural airports are an economic engine for the communities they serve,” said Sen. Nelson. “This legislation will keep Nebraska’s rural airports upgraded, modern and safe. Rural airports are counting on these funds. These tough times are, hopefully, temporary and rural airports shouldn’t be penalized by losing funds they need for runway work, security upgrades or other improvements to remain modern and up-to-date.” Read the rest of this entry »

Having just traveled to Paris on an Air France A330 a week before the crash of Flight 447, I took a rather personal interest in the crisis wondering whether it might have been the same aircraft I’d flown on the week before for starters and a host of other things. But the crash was obviously about much more than me. I didn’t lose anyone in the horrible event of June 1.

With a few notable exceptions, Continental and Southwest, I’m not normally very patient with airlines about how they interact with customers because they usually do such a lousy job of it. That’s why I found this analysis from SimpliFlying’s Shashank Nigam so interesting and worthy of a cross-post. Air France did quite a bit right after the crash as you’ll read here. He asks and answers the question, how can an airline brand survive a disaster? This piece first appeared a few weeks ago on the SimpliFlying blog.

Rob Mark

*****************************

As many of you have probably heard on the news, Air France Flight 447, an Airbus A330-203 (A332), disappeared a couple of nights ago, flying to Paris (CDG) after departing Rio Di Janeiro (GIG). It’s the first fatal crash of the A330 since 1992, when the plane went into service. Right now as Air France, the Brazilian military and Airbus work to find out the  minimize the public relations damage that is caused by any crash, especially an unexplainable lost aircraft, there are lots of lessons to be learnt in how a leading airline brand should deal with disaster.

What did Air France do well in the aftermath of the crash?

Though there are lots of people affected in the aftermath of an airplane crash, from the plane manufacturer to the air traffic controllers, priority must be given to the relatives of those lost in the accident. Air France as done a pretty decent job of this, despite not knowing where the plane was and the cause of the crash.

1. Up-to date information was provided directly to the relatives, through dedicated phone lines, in French, Portuguese and through international numbers. The media were advised not to call this number.
3. AirFrance.com was changed to a graphic-less look to mourn for the crash, and instead of seeing a normal booking engine, visitors saw links to getting more information about the crash.

Read the rest of this entry »

Catching up on my reading, the annual report of the Sporty’s Foundation had worked its way to the top of the pile. As I was flipping through the pages I was not really thinking about the good works presented in words and pictures. I was thinking about Jay Leno’s last night as host of the Tonight Show, when he joined the 68 children born to staff members during his 17-year tenure, his “legacy,” he said. Would there be a stage big enough, I wondered, to gather Hal Shever’s legacy?  Maybe Aero Shell Square at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh?

Sporty’s 501(c)(3) foundation is entering its third year, but Hal, its chairman and founder, has been giving  back to aviation for more than four decades through the corporate philanthropy of Sporty’s Pilot Shop. More than an astute businessman, he is an indefatigable teacher of flight whose eye is always looking to the future. “If there is no freshman class,” he’s told me more than once over the years, “in four years there will be no graduates.”

Multiply the foundation’s work over the past year–awarding $151,355 to the aviation related activities of a diverse group that ranges from the Aircraft Electronics Association and AOPA Air Safety Foundation to the Boy Scouts of America and EAA Chapter 838–by four decades and many more groups and activities, and that’s a pretty good crowd right there. Then think about the possibilities of the Foundation new partnership with the EAA Young Eagles to create The Next Step, an effort designed to jumpstart the number of young people who learn to fly.

But that’s only part of the Sporty’s freshman classes. The rest of them, college students and recent graduates work for Sporty’s Pilot Shop and any number of Hal’s other aviation endeavors in flight training, maintenance, and avionics. It would be interesting to gather this group that launched its collective career at Hal’s Batavia, Ohio, headquarters separately, tally the number and variety of aviation-related firms they now work for, and ask them a single question: What is your most memorable experience from the hot dog feast that Sporty’s holds–rain or shine–every Saturday at the Clermont County/Sporty’s Airport (I69)? — Scott Spangler

One of Jetwhine’s earliest supporters – Matt Thurber – sent us this piece, one that I’m happy to publish. Matt is an old friend and a senior editor at Aviation International News, where I’m also a long-time contributor.

This piece would be disturbing in any environment, but in one where the new Administrator Randy Babbitt has only been in the left seat for less than a month, I’m honestly shocked. I thought when the topic was aviation safety, that we were all playing on the same team, but perhaps not. I also thought the public affairs folks at FAA had more integrity than this. Maybe that transparency memo didn’t make it over from the White House.

Rob Mark, editor

Yesterday, the FAA announced that it is holding a “call to action summit” on Monday June 15 to “improve airline safety. The day-long session will foster action and voluntary commitments in several areas of flight safety including standards for pilot training and performance. Secretary LaHood and Administrator Babbitt will be joined by representatives from the major air carriers, their regional partners, aviation industry groups and organized labor.”

The FAA goes on to explain how this meeting is being held. First there will be opening remarks by DOT Secretary Ray LaHood and FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt. Then after these opening remarks, according to the FAA press release, “Members of the media will be escorted [my emphasis] from the room following opening remarks. The meeting is closed to media.”

Nicely done, FAA. In the age of “nothing improves safety like transparency” and oh, by the way, this is a free country with a free press, the FAA is going to escort members of the media out of the meeting. Now, I understand that the airline, aviation association and union people might feel constrained if the media were allowed to attend this meeting, so I’ll let that part go, even though I’m eager to hear what they have to say (email me – as well as Rob here at Jetwhine of course – with details, if you manage not to get escorted out).

But couldn’t the FAA have handled this a little better? Why announce that you’re holding a closed meeting ahead of time? Or why invite the press then escort them out? A better way to handle this (and this isn’t my idea, so don’t give me credit) would be to hold the private meeting first, then invite the press in to ask a few questions and get a briefing. This way, everyone gets to participate, the press doesn’t feel like they aren’t wanted (which they aren’t, by the way, I’m not stupid), and no escortation is involved.

I can’t help wondering: whose great idea was this anyway? I’m going to have to go with our new FAA administrator, Randy Babbitt. Okay, Mr. Babbitt, communication in any form is always good. But dissing the communicators, not good. May I respectfully suggest: try again.

Matt Thurber

Technorati tags: FAA, Randy Babbitt, Aviation International News, Ray LaHood, Matt Thurber, NATCA, aviation safety, airline safety, FAA public affairs

On June 4 the Des Moines Register published an article whose headline said “Tiny Iowa Airports Take Off With Millions in FAA Grants.” To be honest, it’s what you’d expect from a newspaper and reporter whose aviation experience doesn’t extend much past his last airline flight.

The gist of this “analysis” is this: “Airports across the state have received more than $76.6 million in airport improvement grants since 2007 — about 42 percent of which has gone to small airports without commercial airline service that process fewer than 50 takeoffs and landings per day….”

With clearly no clue about the aviation trust fund, who pays into it, and how the airport improvement program works, this analysis comes “at a time when Congress is debating whether the tax structure that funds most Federal Aviation Administration programs should be changed to shift more of the burden to owners and operators of small aircraft.”

To keep the story “objective,” the reporter notes an upcoming Iowa DOT report that says the states’s GA airports feed $187 million to the states economy, and quotes NBAA’s Ed Bolen, who said, “If all the business flying in the United States went away, you would still need these airports.” And then the reporter got back to his main point:

“How much public money should be used to support infrastructure that much of the general public does not use?” and “Critics, including the airline industry, have argued that commercial passengers have paid billions for upgrades to small airports that they will probably never patronize.”

Read the rest of this entry »

I had the good fortune recently to be invited to ferry a Dassault Falcon 2000LX back to the U.S. – Teterboro in fact – from the factory in Bordeaux France. It was my first Atlantic crossing and certainly gave me new respect for the work it takes to make sure the aircraft really is where it should be over the water.

I’m editing some great video of the trip that we’ll have up here pretty soon.

My thanks to a bunch of Dassault people who made the trip possible, like Ralph Acceti and Andrew Ponzoni here in the states, and Vadim Feldzer and Philippe Delemue in France. Philippe is Dassault’s chief pilot in France and in charge of all the other pilots who are often forced to share the cockpit with know-it-all journalists like me. This time around though, Philippe sat right seat for most of the trip across the Atlantic.

The trip to the Bordeaux factory came right at the tail end of my flight in the Airbus A380 at Toulouse.

In order to make it all work, Philippe picked me up in Toulouse and gave me a ride back to Bordeaux to make the connection. He came over in a V-tail Bonanza very much like the one I flew 30 years ago when I started working on my commercial certificate. I thought that Bonanza was the coolest thing I ever flew than and even coller now sitting under the A380’s wingtip.

Philippe took a shot of the Dassault Bonanza sitting at Toulouse that just made me smile. I thought you’d all like it. Funniest part was seeing all the Airbus people at the factory falling over themselves to see the V-35 sitting under the A380.

Thanks Philippe and everyone else.

For as long as I can remember, Southwest Airlines, now the largest U.S. domestic airline, created in the 1970s by Herb Kelleher and Rollin King, has been the low-cost airline others most want to emulate. The need to copy isn’t just about money, although Southwest has a profit history better than any other airline in the world. Most Southwest look-a-likes have, in fact, been dismal failures.

Southwest has a record of solid labor relations – despite last week’s pilot contract rejection – and a culture of customer fun in an industry that most others have never been able to duplicate. Southwest simply delivers a solid, consistent service at a fair price that keeps passengers coming back. To me, an airline that actually still responds in writing to a customer complaint says quite a bit.

The airline’s no hidden fees policy has also carried it quite a long way at a time when competitors have tried charging for everything short of breathing space. True, Southwest did appear to break with tradition last week when it announced some new fees, but charging for the work related to managing unaccompanied minors as well as pets carried in the cabin is something the average man or woman on the street will most likely never notice.

On to Ireland

Read the rest of this entry »

No one in aviation has escaped the recession, but it seems that some companies are better set up to deal with it because they pursue an old fashioned business model: listen to your customers, do everything in your power to meet their needs, and grow the business only when it makes sense, not to meet the annual demands set by shareholders interested only in a short-sighted return on their investments.

Sonex Aircraft is one such company with an old fashioned focus. “Business is down, like it is for everyone in this economy,” said Mark Schaible, at the company’s four-hangar complex at Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, “but the demand is still there, and our business model is serving us well.” The company is busy delivering products and developing new ones, like an electric airplane, for the future.

Flexibility is a  business model key that works in good times and bad. As just one example, Sonex’s eight employees don’t have titles: they are responsible for things. For Schaible its PR, marketing, and inventory, “and everyone picks up a broom when needed.”

Outside vendors make most of the parts for the Sonex line of amateur-built aircraft, and the same is true for the sibling business, Aero Conversions, which makes the AeroVee engine used by an ever growing number of homebuilts. Using the VW conversion as an example, Schaible said there’s always more than one quality provider, so the company is rarely in the lurch, and Sonex does all the engineering, so a single source cannot cause problems like those Boeing has faced with its 787 Dreamliner.

Flexibility’s equal partner is deliberate, managed growth, Schaible said. With flexibility, to sustain the business, “you don’t need to grow.” “We work on a real slim margin,” because serving customers more efficiently and economically is often better than nonsensical growth, especially for a business that staked its niche by providing more airplane for less money.

Read the rest of this entry »

I was privileged to have been invited to fly the Airbus A380 in Toulouse last week. I think it took about 4 seconds for me to decide when I was asked if I wanted the job of flying, evaluating and then writing up my findings on a few new pieces of on-board electronics to this big bird. The assignment came with the chance to spend an hour or so at the tiller and the side stick of the 380. The major results of my evaluation will be found in an upcoming story on the aircraft in Aviation International News.

The day after returning from France, I headed out to our local airport restaurant to wow some of my Saturday morning airport pals with tales from the large side of the industry. At maximum gross weight, the A380 weighs in at just over 1.2 million pounds. I think my first Cessna Citation tipped the scales at around 13,000 pounds.

The day I returned from France too, my friend Addison Schonland from Innovation Analysis Group (IAG) called to ask whether I had any fun on the flight. Within a few minutes of listening to me bubble over with enthusiasm for the event, he decided we needed to record a podcast for his show. We did.

So sit back and listen in as two airplane geeks – sorry Court and Max, we’re just borrowing the title for a minute – talk a bit about the ins and outs of flying the largest commercial aircraft in the world. It was a gas. My thanks to the folks at Airbus in Toulouse for offering up the opportunity. Wonder if it’s time to turn in that RJ photo at the top of the Jetwhine logo for an A380? Mmmm.

Flying the A380 (click to listen). Rob Mark

Years ago in another life, I was a VFR tower controller at a number of then really busy airports, Chicago Palwaukee (now Chicago Executive), Chicago DuPage, Chicago Meigs and Miami Opa-Locka.

As a pilot and a newly minted flight instructor, I always enjoyed the chance to chat with student and private pilots who would appear at the base of the tower and ask to come up for a tower tour. We’d talk about the local airport and how they we might all work better together for a faster, safer operation.

Since 9/11, it is much more difficult to visit airport control towers … not impossible, but certainly much tougher.

Now, a move to transform VFR towers into remotely operated ATC facilities might make it even less likely pilots will be visiting tower cabs at their local airport. Indeed, local air traffic controllers could well go the way of the flight engineer … nice to have, but not necessary.

Read the rest of this entry »

At Kent State University in Ohio, students hoping for a career in two failing industries–aviation and publishing–have joined forces to improve the future of both by starting an online aviation magazine. Its tag line, “Grass Roots. Blue Sky,” summarizes the content of  Stories That Fly. Produced by the School of Journalism & Mass Communication and the College of Technology’s aeronautics program, the website went live May 2.

In the editor’s note, Joe Murray explains   the magazine’s mission: “The light of the mainstream media often shines brightly on the jet drivers, millionaires and astronauts. But what most people don’t know is that you are as likely to find them here, at the local airfield…Among them are the freight dogs, restorers, crop dusters, mechanics, parachute packers, blimp and balloon drivers, flight instructors, students, sport pilots, and airfield operators. They all feed their families and love of aviation by living and working around the flying machines that most of us see only as specks in the early morning’s blue sky.”

A pilot, Murray is an associate professor of electronic media, and Stories That Fly started as an academic project, “Grass Roots: Digital Journalism in the Nation’s Birthplace of Aviation.” It was recognized as one of the top 10 innovative U.S. community news ventures by New Voices, a Knight Foundation-supported initiative of J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism at American University. It tells general aviation’s story in words, pictures, and video submitted by students, professional writers and photographers, and participants sharing the narratives of their lives.

Read the rest of this entry »

After reading reports of faltering flight schools, I wandered over to the Fox Valley Technical College’s aviation campus on the Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, to see how things were going in flyover country. Not so bad, it seems.

There I met Amanda White (that’s her on the left) and Elizabeth Amweg.  They graduated last Sunday, May 17, each with an associate’s degree, a commercial pilot certificate (SEL & MEL), instrument rating, and CFII and MEI. Both come from non-flying families, and both have positive and ambitious goals for their flying futures. What I found most interesting is where that future flies: business aviation.

Read the rest of this entry »

It gives me great pleasure to announce Jetwhine’s latest collaboration with Shashank Nigam’s SimpliFlying. Shashank is a Boston and Singapore-based self-professed airline geek who loves marketing. Shashank creates brand initiatives with airlines and airports that drive and create meaningful conversations with consumers, often through social media. And he’s merged his passions for branding and airlines over at SimpliFlying.

SimpliFlying is an award-winning blog, that offers insights into the world of airline branding by exploring issues that affect airlines all across the world. With almost 200 case studies of airline brands around the world, read more than 75,000 times, SimpliFlying is a must read for an airline or a marketing junkie.

I hope to have another of his posts up here soon. Your comments are always appreciated.

Rob Mark, editor

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Three ways airline brands can make money from Twitter

Posted on April 22, 2009, 5:58 pm, by Shashank Nigam

A couple of weeks ago, I asked had an interesting conversation with a senior airline executive in Asia. Here’s how it went:

SN: What’s the emotional motivation (not $) for your customers to fly your airline?
Airline exec: Erm…I’m not sure.
SN: Hmm…is there someone front-line I can speak with who’d know, like the check-in staff, or flight crew?
Airline exec: Actually, the airport crew is outsourced, so we have little inputs, and it’s logistically tough to reach out to the crew.

What fascinated me the most were two things. One – I was talking to a (very) senior executive who didn’t know what, beyond price, attracts his customers. And secondly, the fact that the airport crew is outsourced may be a short term gain ($$ savings) but a long term loss due to the lack of front line inputs.

Twitter to the rescue! Tweet. Tweet.

But market research need not be that difficult. Especially when tools like Twitter exist these days, which allow you to connect with anyone – inside or outside your company – to seek opinions, cheaply and in real-time. Twitter is the in-thing these days. An article in Forbes last week urged CEOs to tweet actively. Addison Schonland from IAG had an insightful podcast featuring three kings of airline twittering – Southwest, JetBlue and Alaska. And just yesterday, “Flying with Fish” blog wrote an article on the topic too. So, what’s the fuss all about?

Read the rest of this entry »

Every year about this time aviation writers around the globe start getting a little goose bumpy wondering if they made the cut. Making the cut means you’ve been nominated by the World Leadership Forum for the Aerospace Journalist of the Year awards. The list includes the top five or six writers in a dozen different categories whose work during the last year has been deemed worthy of recognition. Just making it to the shortlist is an honor, a bit like the Oscars, but without the opportunity to meet Nicole Kidman or Natalie Portman.

This year, I’m very honored to have made that short list in the Business Aviation category for a story published in Business Jet Traveler earlier this year called, “Defending Your Business Jet.” I was also one of the lucky winners in 2004 for a story about aviation training safety.

The final decision on who walks away with the Oscar happens just before they open the doors to the Paris Air Show this year, so the next few weeks will keep us all biting our nails.

But to paraphrase the old joke, “Enough about me …”

I want to spend a moment and acknowledge a few of my comrades who also made it to the short list and what they submitted this year to the contest. Maybe we’ll find out a few more of these aviation journalist types either read Jetwhine or have Twitter accounts so we can stay more closely in touch.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a new installment of our sporadic Fun Friday adventures. From a couple of Jetwhine readers I now share a couple of very funny videos. The first, a new piece of Air New Zealand branding in a way only the folks next to the folks down under can do it. Imagine United trying something like this.

And also, at no extra charge, Jetwhine is adding another video that comes straight from a secret aviation contact in Washington DC and brings an entirely new meaning to landing a jumbo. My apologies to Republican readers who may find this hilarious clip offensive.

Have a great weekend everyone.

And BTW, as long as I have your attention, assuming you’ve stopped laughing at this point, I’d like to take a moment and suggest you pass along the highly coveted Jetwhine URL to friends who might enjoy becoming a subscriber. We offer two options, e-mail or RSS. Thanks for your support.

Rob Mark, editor

Aviation history is written by the triad of people, planes, and places, and news about any of the three always catches my attention. The National Trust for Historic Preservation recently published its 22nd annual list of the nation’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. On it is the hangar at the Wendover, Utah, airfield that protected the Enola Gay when the 509th’s Composite Squadron was practicing for its historic missions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Waiting for the YouTube video tour to load (after shaking my head at its unchangeable headline error), my mind played the scene where a black and white Eleanor Parker, playing the wife of 509th commander Paul Tibbets and bundled up in sheepskin flight gear, collects frozen sheets from her Wendover clothesline in the 1952 film, Above & Beyond. At the same time I kicked myself for not making the short detour from Interstate 80 on my cross-country motorcycle trip in 1974. But it was August, very hot, and I was sure I’d pass that way again. But unless action is taken soon, I’ll have to settle for two out of three, person and plane.

Read the rest of this entry »

The NTSB meets this week to ask the tough questions about February’s Dash 8 crash in Buffalo. They’ll be looking at icing effects on aircraft performance, cold weather operations, sterile cockpit rules, crew experience, fatigue management, and stall recovery training. The one that jumped out at me as an old regional airline pilot is the qualification issue.

A Jetwhine reader – Lou Smith from FLTops.com – recently sent me the transcript of Robert Sumwalt’s comments before the Regional Airline Association last fall in Washington. The gist of Sumwalt’s comments focused around whether the regional airline industry was and is doing all it can to maintain the one level of safety the FAA demanded many years ago when those regionals – then called commuters – were moved out of Part 135 to join the big guys in Part 121. Like Sumwalt, I don’t think regional airline pilots have quite made the leap to the safety level of major airline pilots, but based on their experience, not their abilities.

There has been a lot of talk since February about not just how the crew of the Dash 8 handled the ice, but whether or not they were seasoned enough to be flying in that weather in the first place. Sure to come up this week is not only that topic, but whether the regional airline industry has thought the crew qualification issue through, past the next flight that is.

Smith also sent me a BBC story that everyone should hear that asks how anyone in their right mind doesn’t see the correlation between the fatal injury rate on regional aircraft and the qualifications of the pilots flying them. You tell me whether or not you buy Regional Airline Association president Roger Cohen’s explanation of industry issues, especially when he was asked about the Flight Operations Quality Management System – a version of the Safety Management System business aviation is organizing – regional airlines have yet to implement, or the potential fatigue issues that surround the low pay for regional pilots. I didn’t.

Pretty scary when you learn that major airline pilots don’t want to use regional airplanes to commute to work when the weather is bad because they don’t trust the people in the cockpit.

Ever since I can remember personal flying has always represented the lion’s share of the general aviation fleet and hours flown, measured by the FAA’s annual GA and Part 135 survey. The most current data is for 2007, well before the economy reached full meltdown, and it suggests trends that are puzzling in their contradictions: a growing fleet of personal-use aircraft that is flying less and a shrinking business fleet that’s flying more.  

We’re talking mostly about piston airplanes, the majority of them single-engine. When the FAA sends its annual survey forms to US aircraft owners, they check the box that best describes the airplane’s primary use. Between 1996 and 2007, the number who checked “personal” grew by 25 percent, from 113.4 K to 152.5 K. It reached this level in a few giant steps:  115 K in 1997, 124.3 K in 1998, 124.3 K in 1998, and 147.1 K in 1999. From there it meandered down to its current level.

Over the same period, the flight hours in the personal category fell 4 percent, from 9.03 million in 1996 to 8.68 million in 2007. The biggest change again occurs between 1998 and 1999, when personal hours jumped from 9.78 million to 11.07 million, peaked at 11.47 million in 2000, and then started a gradual decline. By themselves, the hours don’t look bad–until you divide them by the growing personal fleet. This shows a 40 percent decline in a fairly straight line. In 1996, the 113.4 K airplanes each flew 79.69 hours. In 2007, 152.5 K aircraft each flew 56.89 hours.

Generically, flying you can write off as a tax deduction (or get reimbursed for from your employer) counts as business flying. Over this 10-year span this fleet shrank 22 percent, almost as much as the personal fleet grew. Again, 1998-99 was the pivotal transition, when this fleet went from 32.6 K to 24.5 K. By themselves, business hours fell 5 percent, from 3.26 million in 1996 to 3.09 million in 2007, but the per aircraft total increased, from 106 to 124 hours a year.

Read the rest of this entry »