For Europe, the so-called very light jet (VLJ) revolution has turned out to be more a case of evolution in which only the most financially fit seem destined to survive. Undeterred by setbacks such as the collapse earlier this year of some new entrants (including Bikkair of the Netherlands), most of the continent’s VLJ air-taxi pioneers gathered for the VLJ Europe conference organized by MIU Events at Oxford, UK, in September to compare notes on just how challenging market conditions continue to be.
Production delays at Embraer’s factory and an associated bottleneck in the pilot training process for its new Phenom 100 VLJ have delayed the service launch of Jetbird. The company was due to have begun revenue flights from its initial operating base at Cologne, Germany, during September, but CEO Stefan Vilner told the conf-erence that this will now happen “before the end of this year.” Vilner told AIN that delays in initial Phenom 100 deliveries to Jetbird and other customers had in turn meant that too many pilots needed to access the available training infrastructure at the same time.
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