Wings of luxury - visiting Jet Expo Moscow

The private aviation industry has a few annual gathering events, and one of them is Jet Expo in Moscow. 

Although the Russian market has been affected by economic and geopolitical turmoil, Moscow is still home to scores of ultra-high-net-worth individuals, including a notable number of billionaires. Not a surprise, then, that the Russian capital, and Jet Expo in particular, features quite prominently in the calendar private jet industry.

Private aviation is also becoming an (even more) interesting industry, with new distribution channels opening it up to new publics and an attractive and diverse range of offerings across all aircraft categories.

In this regard, Jet Expo seems to be oriented towards the upper end of the market, with aircraft like the Bombardier Global 6000, the Gulfstream G650 and Airbus, Boeing and UAC (Sukhoi) presenting their own airliner versions for the executive market.

The Airbus ACJ, an A319 converted into an executive jet, complete with its bedroom and bathroom with shower, stands out in the large aircraft segment.

Next are some pictures of the ACJ that Airbus brought to the show.

The Airbus ACJ

As you may have guessed already, it is as spectacular in the inside as you would expect from a private aircraft on this scale.

Airbus ACJ bedroom

The tail of a Sukhoi Superjet as seen from the window of the Airbus ACJ

Standing next to the Airbus ACJ and slightly smaller was the Sukhoi Superjet VIP - in the colour scheme of Russian government jets (a livery shared also, until very recently, by Aeroflot's subsidiary Rossiya). 

I did not get any good pictures from the interior, but here are some from the outside - I keep thinking the Superjet is, actually, a beautiful plane!

The executive jets in the background are not part of Jet Expo, but just the usual guests of Vnukovo airport, where the show took place. By the way, this nose belongs to the Superjet!

The Superjet from another angle...and the Sun that started to shine after a rainy morning!

Face to face with the Falcons

The three engine configuration is an iconic feature of the Falcon family - a representative from Dassault told me that, rather than having issue with fuel consumption, by optimizing the use of the three engines, the Falcon can run more efficiently than other two-engined models. 

An aircraft that surprised me in a very positive way was the Dassault Falcon 7X (until the launch of the Falcon 8X, the youngest and top-of-the-range member of the legendary Falcon family). This was really a first for me, I had seen the Bombardier and Gulfstream models, even the Airbus ACJs and Boeing BBJs, at other events such as EBACE, in Geneva, but I did not really know what to expect of the Dassault Falcon family.

Where would you like to fly to today? The Falcon 7X can reach most of the World in one go...

Getting on board of the Falcon was really a revelation: in addition of its advertised technical performance, I found the design of this aircraft, both in the inside and from the outside, extremely inspiring.

Nice cockpit. Not an expert in avionics, but looks pretty advanced!

I liked the interior of the Falcon, not the largest aircraft out there, but looked and felt rather spacious and comfortable throughout, plus I liked the modern, elegant lines of the cabin decor

Falcon 7X wing detail

Helicopters were also present at the show, with Airbus Helicopters presenting is offering in a market that has a strong local competitor, Russian Helicopters. Although Airbus has a solid position here at the top end of the market.

There were also helicopters at Jet Expo - with Airbus Helicopters showcasing their upmarket models (this one comes with golden seat-belt buckles!) with some local support

Other usual suspects at the show: Embraer brought its Phenom 300 and Phenom 100.

A cute little plane from Japan

Another aircraft that caught my eye was the Honda Jet.

Already in the small privatet jet segment (it fits 4-5 people and sells from around $4.5M) this small Japanese jet has some very interesting features.

It has a baggage compartment in the nose! 

Sleek, minimalist lines

And a rather original engine configuration, with both engines mounted on pods on top (!) of the wing, rather than below. A representative from the company assured me this way the Honda Jet can lower noise cabin for its passengers.

For those interested, here's the Honda Jet cockpit 

Despite being in the market for a very short period of time, Honda Jet's Russian distributor told me they had already sold some of them

KLM to withdraw its last Fokker 70

Still over a year to go...but KLM has already announced that it will cease Fokker 70 operations on 29th October 2017.

This will be the first time in several decades that there are no Fokker aircraft sporting KLM's trademark blue.

The tasks fulfilled by the small emblematic Dutch-made airliner will be taken over by Embraer E175 and E-190s, of which KLM has already 31 (30 E-190s and 1 E-175), with 16 more E-175s joining the fleet up to 2018. This will make of KLM the largest E-Jet operator in Europe.

As it might be expected from an airline so closely associated with its home country, The Netherlands, KLM has been an operator of most Fokker airliners.

This association between the Dutch aircraft maker and the Netherlands flag carrier goes back to the very early days of the airline, in the 1920s. More recently, KLM's regional subsidiaries, NLM Cityhopper and, later, KLM Cityhopper, operated pretty much the whole range Fokker's iconic airliners, the Fokker 27 Friendship, Fokker 28 Fellowship, the Fokker 50, Fokker 100, and its smaller derivative, the Fokker 70, that is now due for retirement.

Fokker went bankrupt in 1996, although the brand lives on as Fokker Technologies, a provider of aeronautical services that groups assets that were acquired by Stork BV, and later by GKN Technologies, after the bankruptcy. This means that there are less and less Fokker aircraft around, some mainstream airlines are still flying Fokkers in Europe, though, for example, just a few days ago I could spot this Austrian Airlines Fokker 100 at Moscow Domodedovo airport.

Fokker enthusiasts and, more generally, those curious about the topic, will be glad to know that the second hand Fokker aircraft market is still quite active, with 23 Fokker aircraft changing hands in the first half of 2016, including three new operators of the type!

Prospects for the A380? A cool website, for now

There are few commercial aircraft that are easily recognizable by the general public or, at least, by those that live outside the #avgeek bubble - the Airbus A380 is one of them - the other clear winner is, of course, the iconic Boeing 747.

And people that have flown the A380 seem to like it a lot also. Well, at least this is the feedback that I have received from my own - non-scientific - sample.

Whether this popularity will translate into financial success for Airbus, though, is an entirely different matter. A point we already made on one of the earliest posts published in this blog, back in 2010.

Although the A380 is a bet on the long-term growth of air travel - a rather reasonable assumption to make - looks like airlines prefer the flexibility of smaller planes to cover this demand and the number of routes able to sustain the capacity of an A380 is possibly not that large. Only Emirates, the largest A380 operator by a wide margin, seems to have found the formula to operate profitably a large fleet of the type.

Net orders have remained stagnant for the last couple of years, with very little in the way of new clients and some prospective A380 operators, such as Transaero of Russia, Skymark of Japan or Kingfisher of India, having gone bankrupt in the meantime. What's more, the prospect of a re-engined A380neo seems rather uncertain at the moment. This situation has led Airbus to cut production to one aircraft per month in the near future.

Some in the industry have compared A380 production rates to the historical of orders and deliveries for the Boeing 747 to show how peaks and throughs are not unusual in a decades-long large aircraft programme. 

In any case, this is the context in which Airbus has launched its latest A380 marketing initiative, the iflyA380 website.

Interestingly enough for an industrial concern selling hundred-million pieces of sophisticated machinery to other businesses, the target of this campaign are air travelers.

Airbus is, thus, appealing to the ultimate users of the aircraft, to become its public advocates.

The A380 website allows you to search for itineraries that can be completed with A380 aircraft (although it would also give you other choices when those are not available) and provides also information about the different airlines operating the type and the service classes they offer. It does not let you make a booking, though. For this you will need to visit the airlines' own websites.

The website itself provides a wealth of details of interest for aviation enthusiasts (and A380 fans in particular!) although I remain skeptical it will do much to change the A380's fortunes.

I find particularly noteworthy, though, as an exercise in B2C marketing. This is  arecurring topic, in the last few weeks, and it has come up in my own conversations with senior Airbus staff: how aircraft manufacturers may become increasingly involved in marketing their products not only to airlines and leasing companies, but also to the final users, the passengers. 

On CNN: What to expect at the Farnborough Air Show?

Like every other summer, pretty much the whole aviation industry is packing its bags to head to Farnborough, England, for the Farnborough International Air Show.

And, like every other summer, speculation runs rife as to what the highlights of this year are going to be: new orders, new aircraft being presented in public, new ideas, concepts and technologies...

So, I put together my outline of what can visitors expect to find this year at the show.

Find it out on this CNN piece...

Airbus experiments with 3D design for cabin interiors

On one of my visits to Airbus' Toulouse HQ I had the chance to see the aircraft interior design center, that is the place where airlines come to choose the decor of their aicraft.

Your can think of it as a sort of furniture showroom, not unlike the more mundane ones where people go to choose the decor for their homes.

Colour schemes for Thai Airways passenger cabin

There are cabin mock ups in different styles, as well as a whole range of materials, colours and textures to choose from. So many combinations that it can be somehow overwhelming.

Just like any other showroom...

But Airbus is experimenting with new technologies to make the whole process a lot more efficient. In particular, 3D imagery seems to be suited for this task. It makes sense, as it provides an immersive experience with which you can visualize how the cabin would look like.

You can easily switch from one configuration and style to the next without the costs associated to building a physical mock-up or the level of abstraction required to imagine it from a catalogue (and there are thousands of possible combinations!)

It is not unthinkable that you may see the same thing soon at your local IKEA!