May 25, 2004
EBACE spreading its roots

The European Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (EBACE) is now firmly established in the industry's annual calendar of events. “EBACE has found its feet–it's solid [with] floor space sold out,” said U.S. National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) chairman and interim president Don Baldwin here. As NBAA becomes increasingly involved in spreading the good news of business aviation to all continents, he told EBACE Convention News : “Fifty- to sixty- percent growth compared with the first event in 2001 makes it pretty significant.” Similar events have started, or are being planned, in South America and the Asia/Pacific region.

Asked if there weren't too many, too-costly aerospace shows pitching for a slice of limited available exhibition expenditure, NBAA operations senior vice-president Robert Blouin said any event to promote business aviation was good: “EBACE is not competing with [Britain's] Farnborough or [France's] Paris air shows: we're EBACE. Our response to any suggestion that there are too many events is that they have to be the right events [if they are to appeal to marketing budgets].”

Nor does Blouin believe that a separate business aircraft park, as planned at Farnborough in two months' time, makes the sector look a poor relation against a backdrop of global aerospace. “No, it complements. It's great, wonderful if Farnborough wants to do something. You must have the accent on the right syllable: aviation in general has an identity at Paris and Farnborough, and at Oshkosh and our own convention [NBAA]. Each provides an established atmosphere and a venue that is conducive to business.”

New Frontiers in Latin America and Asia

“The Latin American Business Aviation Conference & Exhibition [in Brazil] has given directors of civil aviation in South America an idea of what business aviation is about,” said Baldwin. “By interfacing, we can get a better idea of the constraints as seen by industry. EBACE, LABACE and [the proposed] Asian Business Aviation Conference & Exhibition [ABACE] event provide opportunities to start working with governments around the world to maintain and increase [business aviation] access.”

NBAA is leading efforts to establish ABACE, which is planned to take place in mid-2005 in Shanghai (on dates as yet unspecified, perhaps soon after the Paris show in June, given EBACE's May timing and the onset of the holiday season in July and August). More immediately, there are plans for a whole-day business-aviation forum this year in Hong Kong.