At Tuesday’s general session of the National Business Aviation Association convention in Las Vegas, NBAA President Ed Bolen wasted no time in getting to the association’s main concern: user fees. Throughout the convention center, posters urge NBAA members to oppose user fees by insisting congressional representatives support legislation to prohibit fees. Bolen told the opening session that in every country where user fees have been implemented, general aviation and especially the business aviation segment suffered.
FAA Administrator Michael Huerta also addressed the opening session but pointedly avoided any mention of the user fee issue, pivoting instead to a short discussion of the benefits air traffic improvements that will ultimately underpin the NextGen program will bring to business aircraft operators. He said dozens of performance-based arrival procedures are already in place and are reducing congestion and delays in metropolitan areas. He said 50 more such procedures will be in place in 2016.
The opening session closed on an inspirational note from country singer Dierks Bentley who gave a rambling but entertaining summary of how earning his pilot’s certificate and using airplanes to travel on singing gigs had “knocked the edges” off 150 travel days a year. Bentley flies a G58 Baron but also uses light jets for routine transportation to his concerts. He said business aircraft travel has allowed him to leave his home and family later and return earlier, allowing him to see his kids on Sundays where he might otherwise still be on the road. “If there’s a will and a plane, there’s always a way,” Bentley said.
