It seems the news media now ranks among lawyers and terrorists as one of the groups anyone can castigate without any fear of repercussion from civil society’s language police. So it didn’t come as a shock when, in explaining why his company produced a so-called white paper on what influence on the market the new Boeing 737 Max and Airbus A320neo will likely exert, the head of Irish leasing company Avolon cited a desire to correct misperceptions perpetuated by—you guessed it—the media.
“Over the past twelve to eighteen months, we became concerned that some of the commentary that was in the media, which I would say was largely anecdotal and in many cases unattributed but nevertheless gained quite significant traction,” said Avolon president and chief commercial officer John Higgins. “So last year we set out an objective for the business that we would issue a series of white papers capturing our views on key topics of interest across the industry and seeking really to establish a framework whereby a good, rigorous debate could happen, but grounded in data and hard analysis rather than loose opinions.”
Gregory Polek has spent his entire career in aviation journalism with AIN, starting as a proofreader and assistant to then-managing editor Mary Mahoney in 1995 after serving an internship with New Jersey Monthly magazine and completing his B.A. degree in English/Writing at New Jersey’s William Paterson College. By 1997 Polek accepted a position as an associate editor, covering the regional airline beat for Aviation International News in place of retiring industry veteran Don Anderson. The assignment took Polek across North America and Europe to profile regional airlines varying in size and mission from the likes of floatplane operators Kenmore Air and Chalk’s Ocean Airways to regional jet operators such as SkyWest and American Eagle. Today, in his dual role as Air Transport Editor and International Airshow Editor, Polek writes, edits, and manages AIN’s commercial aviation content while overseeing each of the company’s daily international air show publications in Paris, Farnborough, Singapore, and Dubai. Most recently Polek has assumed oversight of daily coverage of the Helicopter Association International’s annual Heli-Expo convention.
