Oct. 30, 2018
Lafayette College, in Easton, PA, recently featured an article about alumni who “rule the skies of business aviation,” calling it “an industry that continues to grow as more companies choose to either purchase or charter their own aircrafts rather than rely on commercial flights for business travel.”
Interviewed for the article were Gil Wolin, publisher of Business Aviation Advisor; Eric Kantor, who spent nearly 30 years as general counsel for GE Aviation; Dennis Germaske, vice president, Executive Jet Management and Steve Friedrich, chief commercial officer at Embraer Executive Jets.
“It’s about becoming more efficient and productive from a business perspective,” noted Wolin. “Time is really the only nonrenewable resource.”
Business aviation has been around almost since the invention of the airplane, he added, but the introduction of the turbo-prop aircraft in the late 1950s, followed by the business jet in the early 1960s, propelled the industry as people began realizing that time, not steel, was the most precious commodity.
Today, business aviation generates $219 billion in economic activity in the U.S. and supports more than 1 million jobs across the nation, Wolin said, citing statistics from the No Plane No Gain advocacy campaign.
“It’s about business people who are driving the engine of the economy in the U.S. and globally,” added Friedrich, who said he optimistic about the market, and sees it expanding and not only because business jets reduce travel time between point A and B. The real value, he says, is that the mode of transportation facilitates face-to-face connections.