It might surprise some to hear this, but the state of the economy was not on the minds of everyone at last month’s European Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (EBACE). With attendance reaching the third highest level of any EBACE show, a healthy number of exhibitors and more aircraft on the static display than at last year’s event, EBACE’09 easily surpassed the nervous prognostications of those who worried that the show would seriously decline in keeping with the ongoing negative news about the business aviation industry.
Europe and European attitudes about overcoming the relentless obstacles to conducting aviation activities, however, never fail to surprise visitors from the U.S. And the dismal economy is just one more obstacle–albeit a significant one–that has developed and that European aircraft owners, operators and aviation service providers have determined to take in stride.
