As per last week’s Cessna Rise announcement, Cessna is hard at work in trying to correct the way that business aviation is currently being portrayed. Yesterday, CEO Jack Pelton teamed up with NBAA head Ed Bolen for a live interview on Fox – it’s definitely worth watching.
There are some great facts here, many of which I hope legislators and newspaper editors are going to hear. For example, how many of them appreciate that – in the States, at least – a CEO is on board only 15% of the time? Most of the time the aircraft are used by mid level management, technicians and other workers, who are typically engaged in things that keep their customers happy.
Two other key facts need to be understood, as we’ve blogged previously: in the US, where much of the industry is focused, business aviation contributed $150bn to the economy last year (it also accounts for over a million jobs); but even here in Europe PwC recently reported that the industry contributed Euros 20bn to the regional economy.
Some of the media are plainly listening – let’s hope that more opinion formers start following suit.
