A-Tradex Aviation News

Todd Tiahrt, U.S Congressman says that bill he introduced on Thursday is designed to boost general aviation sales.

This bill, called General  Aviation Jobs Act, is intended to lengthen current depreciation allowance for two more years, and cut the recovery time for noncommercial aircraft property from 5 to 3 years. The present depreciation tax provision will expire at the end of the year.

Tiahrt says that by lengthening the depreciation time this bill would anticipate promotion of the sales in general aviation industry, making business aircraft more affordable for buyers.

“With the aviation sector taking such a hard hit in recent months in Southcentral Kansas, Congress should pass this market-driven approach to stimulate our economy in Kansas,” said Tiahrt in his written statement.

The amount of pre-owned business aircraft, available for sale worldwide, has decreased down to 17.2 percent from 18 percent last month, as stated in this week’s report by Tinton Falls Amstat.

 Tom Benson, vice president of the corporate aviation research firm says: “When we examine the past several months worth of market data the trend does seem to indicate that it`s likely that we have seen the peak in terms of used business aircraft for sale.”

  Since 1990 this number has been about 12-13 percent in average, and in the period from late 2007 to early 2008  about 10 percent for jets and 8 percent for turboprops. This report also shows that worldwide business jet fleet resale transactions have increased from 0.6 to 0.8 per month for the last three month.

 Tom Benson said that these numbers can be considered a first signs of market stabilization, even though they may not represent the end of the recession on the market for pre-owned business aircraft.

The market for a pre-owned aircraft is showing a stable recovery, while the demand for a new aircraft is lagging, stated in a JPMorgan’s monthly business jet report issued earlier this week. The report shows that used aircraft inventories fell 50 basis points in September down to 13.6 percent of the aircraft being in service. This is a second consecutive decline and another evidence, that this market is past its worst times.
The prices for used aircraft declined 1.8 percent in September and will continue to decline in the next several months predicts JPMorgan. Though, it wouldn’t be a steady decline.
Prices fell 24 percent since last November, on average. David Nadol III, aerospace analyst at JPMorgan says that prices are expected to continue declining, until inventories, that are expanded now, will decline further.
Besides that, it is expected to have a noticeable margin between improvements in the used jet market in which inventories remain much higher than at last year’s cycle, and an increase in demand for a new aircraft. JPMorgan expects October’s NBAA Convention to be smaller than in a past several years, because of a slow order activity and no expectations for a launches of a new aircraft. However some optimism is present due to improving situation at the used jet market.

The Federal Aviation Administration has advanced its Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen), which would improve traffic management with its automated computer and satellite systems, a senior FAA  official has said.

The FAA said that NextGen is a transformation of a  ground-based air traffic control system to a satellite-based system, called the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B), which would let  pilots to achieve the capability to take on more of their own air traffic activities.

“Air traffic controllers would eventually manage airline traffic more than control it,” said Vicki Cox, the FAA’s senior vice president of NextGen and operations planning, on March 4 at an industry event sponsored by IAC.

The agency has begun to set out ADS-B, first in Alaska, and UPS voluntarily equipped 107 of its aircraft with the technology. Pilots flying aircraft equipped with ADS-B technology in South Florida can already receive air traffic and weather information on their cockpit displays, Cox said.

“This is the first time that pilots are able to observe the same traffic information as air traffic controllers,” she said. The result of using ADS-B in South Florida “paves the way for a national implementation of ADS-B,” she added.

By October, the FAA will have ADS-B capability over the Gulf of Mexico. The agency in partnership with the Helicopter Association International is installing ADS-B ground stations on oil rigs in the gulf.

WASHINGTON, D.C. —The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) today awarded a contract to Sensis Corp. of Syracuse, N.Y. to install runway status lights at 22 major U.S. airports. Runway status lights are designed to improve runway safety at busy airports by warning pilots when it is unsafe to cross or enter a runway.

“These lights are designed with the pilot in mind,” said Robert A. Sturgell, the FAA’s acting administrator. “It’s a big step for safety on the runway. We’re expecting to see positive results right from the start.”

The initial award is a three-year contract valued at $131 million to install the lights. There are two one-year options to install the lights at additional airports, for a total contract value of $215 million. Sensis Corp. is responsible for developing the software, testing and installing the lights. When runway status light prototypes at Dallas-Fort Worth and San Diego International airports proved effective in helping avoid potential runway conflicts, the FAA decided to install the lights at the same airports where the Airport Surface Detection Equipment Model X (ASDE-X) systems are being installed, said Sturgell. The runway status lights will use the ASDE-X surveillance data to operate.

As part of the initial contract, runway status lights will be deployed at Atlanta; Baltimore Washington International; Boston; Charlotte, NC; Chicago O’Hare; Dallas-Fort Worth; Denver; Detroit; Washington Dulles; Fort Lauderdale; Houston Intercontinental; New York John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; Minneapolis; Newark, N.J.; Orlando, Fla.; Philadelphia; Phoenix; San Diego; and Seattle airports.

Installing runway status lights is just one of the FAA’s initiatives to improve safety at U.S. airports. The FAA also recently reached agreements with four U.S. airlines to fund in-cockpit runway safety systems in exchange for critical operational data. The data will help the FAA evaluate the safety impact of the technology and is expected to accelerate key safety capabilities necessary for the transition to the Next Generation Air Transportation System. The FAA earlier announced it will provide $600,000 each to Skywest, Piedmont, U.S. Airways and Southwest Airlines to invest in surface moving maps that show the pilot where the aircraft is on the runway for flights to or from 21 test bed airports. The safety technology provides greater situational awareness for pilots to help them avoid unsafe operations on the airport surface.