The economy is emerging from the soup not with the sudden clarity of a westbound flight through the shattered remnants of a cold front, but more as if it were groping its way through the patchy passing of a stubborn warm front. Against this backdrop, business aviation met in Geneva, Switzerland, and dared to hope that the improvement is durable enough to mark a sustained upswing in the economic cycle.
The European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition (EBACE) in late May certainly did not rival NBAA gatherings of years past in terms of new airplane projects announced, but Dassault chose the Geneva convention to unveil its new Falcon 900DX. Replacing the 900C, the new trijet is positioned between the 2000EX twin and the 900EX. And the convention crowd was the largest yet in the four-year history of the event, with the organizers claiming 6,487 attendees (up by 8.4 percent over last year) and 247 exhibitors occupying 728 booth spaces measuring 10 feet by 10 feet. With no exhibitor vacancies on opening day, EBACE has grown by 56 percent since it first began in 2001. On the static ramp this year, just 30 seconds’ walk from the exhibit hall at the Palexpo center on Geneva Airport, three dozen turbine business aircraft were open for inspection by attendees.
