B/CA Show News - NBAA 2007 Day 1 - (Page 38) d1p38 final 9/23/07 2:10 PM Page 1 N BA A 2007 Jet Aviation Under New Leadership “I think that’s the model that Aviation by state-owned Dubai will continue,” he said. Aerospace Enterprise (DAE), EdHe sees MRO and FBO wards said, “The core of our comoperations and capabilities expetitive edge is not in scale, per se; tending geographically into it’s in service delivery and excellence. new regions while maintaining As long as we stay on strategy, Jet Aviation’s “gold standard” we are going to be a very strong of service to meet the rising competitor.” fleets of new business aircraft. Jet Aviation will continue to de“We want to do it our way or at velop and expand its geographic deleast to our standard, but highly ployment into new markets that are tailored to the needs of the of interest to Jet and the OEMs Peter Edwards. individual OEM’s programs. around the world, “We are certainly looking carefully at India and Edwards told Show News. “One of the commitments China as areas of growth,” Edwards said. The comthat I made very early in the as- pany is already in Asia-Pacific—Seletar in Singasignment is to shift our dialogue pore, and Hong Kong. “We are looking at the with the OEMs from a very op- options for other parts of Asia, including China, erational focus to a more strate- and examining OEM sales backlogs, how much gic one. I’m looking at what those fleets will grow, and the potential of trandrivers will grow, and in which sient traffic in the region.” The balancing act, he parts of the world, what are the explained, is to match future levels of maintenance capabilities, and what support and support to the region’s fleet size and its operlevels will be needed to facili- ational requirements to justify investment over the tate that growth. I think we’ve next three to five years. “I think it’s safe to say that made a shift in that direction we’ll be adding to our capabilities in the region that will serve us very well as the over the course of time.” On Jet’s recent announcement that it won the business continues to push outfirst Boeing 787-9 VVIP completion, Edwards side North America. “With regard to completions, said, “It’s our intention to develop that product and I think our core strategy will re- build a real production line around the 787, as it main with a foot on both shores, has excellent potential over the long term. “We’ve been working with Boeing to educate with our two major excellence centers in Basel and St. Louis, ourselves on the airplane: its new materials, the and organically expanding load paths, the stress environment and its systems them.” He doesn’t see the need environment. There is going to be a learning curve, to open more completions cen- but it’s an extremely intelligently engineered airters at new geographic locations plane. Certainly there will be challenges, but many because larger VVIP aircraft of the elements will also be fairly conventional, so can be in the hangar for over a it’s really at the interface to the structure and the year, and so it’s more efficient systems that we’ll apply most of our effort, and we Jet Aviation has a new hangar for A380 completions and has prepared designs for outfitting the superjumbos as private aircraft. to fly them into existing centers. are quite substantially down that path.”—Mike Vines Many a president and prime minister have made a big point of their first 100 days in office, so it was interesting to talk with Peter Edwards, the new group CEO of Jet Aviation, as he hit this milestone. “Clearly as an industry, we are in a period of remarkable growth,” Edwards said. His first priority was an examination of the whole of the world business aviation market and whether the current trends would continue. “The deeper I looked, the better I liked it,” he said. Asked if he was worried by the recent $1.9 billion acquisition of Standard Aero and Landmark Clifford Promotes Citation II Re-Enginings Michigan’s Clifford Development (Booth 5651) is promoting Williams FJ44-3-powered Citation II and now S/II jets, predicting improved time-to-climb, a 40% NBAA range increase (with four passengers), and a 28% reduction in fuel costs over original aircraft with Pratt & Whitney JD15D engines. “Our Citation II certification program has led us to over 30 systems enhancements that can also be incorporated into the Citation S/II STC,” said CEO Jim Clifford. “We will at the same time be developing a new performance winglet,” Clifford said. The 2007 Citation S/II engine conversion is priced at $2,185,000, including engine-mount kits, nacelles, engines, winglets, installation and training. The price includes a credit for the original engines. 38 September 25, 2007 www.aviationweek.com/shownews http://www.aviationweek.com/shownews
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