Ebola On NBAA Agenda

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The National Business Aviation Association is dealing head-on with the business aviation implications of the spread of Ebola. The organization, which opens its annual convention Tuesday in Orlando, has added a “pop-up education session” entitled Best Practices: Ebola and Business Aviation. Speakers Dr. Paulo M. Alves, the vice president of aviation and maritime health for Medaire, and Dr. Quay Snyder will go over the practical considerations faced by business aircraft operators, especially those who fly to the most-affected areas. It will be held Oct. 22 from 11 a.m. to noon in the Innovation Zone at the convention. “This session will help address Ebola health concerns in business aviation for all operations personnel and managers involved with company and customer safety,” said the NBAA announcement released Sunday. Meanwhile, the exhibit floor at the Orange County Convention Center is full of crates and forklifts as companies get ready to put their best foot forward for the big show. AVweb is in Orlando and will have continuing coverage through Thursday.

On the eve of the show, Honeywell released its annual business aviation forecast, based on surveys of bizjet operators, and there aren’t many surprises in the prognostications. With the general uptick (the last few weeks notwithstanding) in the world economy, Honeywell has boosted its predictions for the value of business jet deliveries over the next 10 years by about 8 percent to $280 billion. The unit numbers aren’t up that much, however. Almost half of those new deliveries will be large-cabin models that sell for a lot more than small jets and will account for 75 percent of the revenue predicted. Still, the light-to-mid-sized market has been improving and will show gains over the forecast period. In the short term, the bizjet business in general will continue to firm up. “2015 industry deliveries are anticipated to be up modestly again, reflecting momentum from several new model introductions and some gains linked to incremental global economic growth,” said Brian Sill, president, Business and General Aviation, Honeywell Aerospace.

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