While in the Caribbean, I sat down with Steven Kong, Managing Director of TLC-Aviation, the executive handling operation of choice on St. Maarten. We talked about St. Barth, the exclusive destination of the "Rich and Famous". St. Barth's is short for the official name ‘Territorial Collectivity of Saint-Barthélemy’. It is part of the French...

The last time I met Roger Whyte was four years ago at the NBAA Annual Convention in Atlanta at the press conference where his retirement from Cessna was announced, after 28 years being a key player and leader of Cessna's sales force, and leaving behind a legacy that cannot be forgotten. A couple of weeks ago, Roger and I met again for lunch at the...

In a professional career, there sometimes are crucial moments which may tip over one’s life and offer unexpected challenges. Eric Dumas went through this type of upheaval two years ago when an opportunity came up and he decided to move to the other side of our planet in the middle of the South Pacific. Until that time Eric has been Manager of...

Gulfstream’s Russia based business jet fleet grew more than six-fold in the last six years. There are 53 customer-operated aircraft in Russia and a combined 76 in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The number of Dassault Falcon jets in the region has doubled over the past five years, with currently more than 60 Falcon jets...

How serious can we take the various industry forecasts? When it comes to responding to an issue, a column writer is often hung up between Shakespeare’s “I’m not to please thee with my answer” and “Give thy thoughts no tongue”. Forecasts can make some people obscenely loaded and others obscenely depressed. Don’t let statistics rule...

For a discovery expedition a scout is the right person. Just like scouting, networking at a conference is a specialized ac­tivity. The scout’s assignment is not to look at the trees of a forest, he’s sent out to see who or what is hiding behind the trees. The networker should not just col­lect business cards and take them at face value; some...

Jan Rezab When the use of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others will be discussed in the Marketing Session, Jan Rezab will be the expert to listen to. He was speaker at more than 75 international conferences including speaking engage­ments at Harvard Business School and Stanford University. He just returned from the USA...

Jan Palmer is one of the invited panel members at CEPA EXPO. A country straightens out its airline. Estonian Air is the country’s flag carrier based in Tallinn. The airline is 90% government owned. SAS is in with less than 10% ownership. To get the job done, the airline selected Jan Palmer, a Swedish veteran who has been in the airline...

Aviation Valley is the region in the south-eastern part of Poland that has evolved into one of the leading locations in Central Eu­rope for conducting and developing projects associated with aviation. It is one of six Euro­pean regions highly specialized in aerospace with a high concentration of manufacturing plants, scientific research centers,...

After another conference day of interesting panel discussions and delegate networking between sessions, it is my honest and objective conclusion that this was a highclass aviation industry symposium. I was a speaker myself at the first CEPA EXPO conference four years ago when it was a relatively small conference but a beginning with the right...

Richard Koe, Managing Director of WINGX Advance was yesterday’s first key note speaker after the conference opening rituals. WINGX Advance specializes on business aviation intelligence gathering and analysis. To have a key note speaker like Richard as a conference opener is important because the presented facts are frequently referred to in many...

Dorin Ivascu – Mr. Fixit in Romanian Aviation A Dutchman who lived in England moved to Romania as Production Director for a Public and Private Event company. What was the point of keeping his airplane, a Piper Seneca IV in the UK, when he lived 2000 km away? On a misty day he takes off from England for a 7 hour flight to what he called...

Dagmar Grossman, CEPA founder and CEO of Grossman Jet Service If there is a bit of a time span between meeting a person and an interval in being part of an event, it gives a better picture of the difference between now and then; maybe a bit of distance is the trick to it. I had not seen Dagmar Grossmann for about two and a half years and so it...