Our resilient industry

Bravo to aviation media for their resilience in these challenging, lockdown times. Corporate Jet Investor, Aviation Week Group, Aviation International News, Avionics International, Gearup TV - all stepped up quickly to keep our industry connected.

When Alasdair Whyte’s first Town Hall webinar aired last week some 450 logged in. AIN’s COVID-19 impact seminar yesterday attracted 750 from all continents, except Australasia (understandably).

We really don’t know where we are going with this, highlighted David Dixon, President of JetCraft Asia, suggesting it’s like three heavy body blows - SARS, the financial crisis, and currency crisis all wrapped into one. He is right. And one can only estimate the magnitude of this crisis.

The good news is that Asia and China are opening up again, and the world relies on China for medical aid. In Europe, Austria (out of heavy curfew) is relaxing its rules - so is Denmark. Observers generally feel though that we are on a U-shape of recovery - rather than a V, but certainly not an L-shape.

Industry associations have rallied too, including EBAA and ERA (European Regions Airline Association) with a dedicated COVID-19 resource on their websites to keep its members informed. In this first issue, we highlight a positive call from EBAA Secretary General Athan Hussein Khan that business aviation will bounce back - and more quickly than the airlines. When we get out of this, business aviation may well be a valuable resource to the airline industry, which is going through a lot more pain.

In the CJI webinar, we heard the USA is much better placed to get flying again - one country and one bail out. EBAA is pushing for a bailout to lower the financial burden and the EU is moving to get funding. A welcome reprieve came with the Eurocontrol decision this week. The message is ringing out loud and clear - we need to be ready for the rebound.

Our brilliant aviation writers should be hard at work now on pre-writes for aviation shows, yet 115 events so far have either cancelled or postponed. Even the rescheduled ones are having to move. If we lose the valued titles they write for - a direct effect of lost advertising and revenue - this becomes your loss too. - We are all in this together.

This Resilient Aviation e-zine is launching to highlight how the industry is rallying, but also, importantly, to underline the great work our media are doing too. I’m grateful to Tim Harlow for allowing me to take over the usual BlueSky for several issues and want to thank the contributors and Emerald Media team members we have on board, to generously donate their time. We look forward to sharing the positivity and innovation our industry is renowned for during the (hopefully short) life span of this title.

Send us your news, your feedback, and follow us too on @ResilientAv.

Keep safe, keep well, keep connected.

emeraldmedia.co.uk

BlueSky Business Aviation News | 9th April 2020 | Issue #552