Last week Jon Jezo AMT Publisher, Nick Sergi AMT Director of Content, Tom Hendershot AMTSociety Executive Director, and I attended the National Business Aircraft Association's 25th Annual Maintenance Management Conference. Earlier this week the NBAA reported that 350 people and 83 exhibitors participated in the conference, both of which were increases over last year's event. Additionally, the number of recipients for the Maintenance Committee's Technical Reward and Career Scholarship (TRAC) program grew from 22 last year to 30 in 2010. A news release from NBAA was posted on the AMT website earlier this week, or you can visit the NBAA website for further information. This was my first NBAA event and a well organized event it was. A lot of hard work goes into organizing, managing, sponsoring and supporting such a professional event, and everyone involved deserves a huge thank you! Throughout the event valuable presentations were provided by aviation professionals on topics relating to maintenance, management best practices, safety, error management and control, and more. I became acquainted with many new people and to them I want to personally say it was nice meeting you. Most people that I spoke with, both exhibitors and flight department types, appeared optimistic regarding this segment of aviation and many indicated their business was doing good. We all certainly hope this is the case. Granted, business aviation is only one of the many segments of aviation industry and alone doesn't indicate across-the-board industry improvements. But, it should be viewed as one of the indicators. The European Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (EBACE2010) is scheduled to be held May 4th through the 6th in Geneva, Switzerland. While AMT will not be attending this event, it will be interesting to hear the results of this event next month. The latest projections for this year's event stated on the EBACE website are similar to 2009 attendance with close to 400 exhibitors registered. I have many old friends that went the business aviation route early in our careers and most are still actively involved. Last month I attended a luncheon hosted by the Minnesota Business Aviation Association where I was able to meet many more business aviation maintenance folks. For those aircraft maintenance professionals that are part of business and corporate aviation, I'd like to know what your thoughts are regarding the current state of this segment. As a business aircraft service center or corporate flight department, how is your maintenance business doing today? Ron
Luxaviation Group
