A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Business Aviation Services Editor

Curt Epstein

Deer Jet, China’s largest business aircraft services provider, signed an agreement yesterday at ABACE 2015 with Dassault Aviation to establish a Beijing service center, which will provide Falcon owners in the region with both line and scheduled maintenance services. Upon inception, the facility will provide support for all Chinese-registered 7X aircraft, while it applies for FAA and EASA certification. Dassault will base two technicians at the center to guarantee maintenance and service quality, as well as provide 24/7 aircraft-on-ground support. It will have a parts inventory of more than $5 million there.

 


“This agreement is essential for us because will bring us together to continue providing high-quality maintenance services for our customers in the Beijing area,” said Olivier Villa, Dassault’s vice president for civil aviation. “Not only for those customers, but for our worldwide customers who travel more and more into China and Asia.”

 


Previously, Dassault authorized ABACE host Shanghai Hawker Pacific Business Aviation Center to conduct Falcon maintenance, and since Deer Jet is a shareholder in Hawker-Pacific Asia Aviation, the facility’s parent company, it will now be able to provide service to Dassault customers in both Beijing and Shanghai.

 


For Deer Jet (Booth P502, Static), the agreement represents the company’s fourth maintenance project, following a parts sales and installation authorization with Rockwell Collins in 2011, an MRO joint venture with Gulfstream in 2012, and an agreement last year with Honeywell to establish a maintenance service center. “In the past 20 years we have been getting very close cooperation with OEMs, and through that cooperation we can provide the best quality service to them and together open the Chinese business aviation market,” said Deer Jet president Zhang Peng.

 


The company is celebrating its 20th anniversary with the unveiling today at ABACE 2015 of one of its Gulfstream G550s painted in a special commemorative scheme. Deer Jet introduced the first charter business jet to China, as well as managed the first privately-owned business jet. Today, it operates the Asia Pacific’s region’s largest charter fleet with 84 aircraft. o

 


Deer Jet Stacks Deck With Three Jet Cards

 


Yesterday Deer Jet introduced the next generation of its jet card program. The new card offerings consist of 10-hour (788,888 RMB/$120,097), 25-hour (1,958,888 RMB/$298,214), and 50-hour (3,868,888 RMB/$588,985) flight-time blocks for use on Deer Jet’s Gulfstream G550s. The company is also working on developing tailored jet card plans. The fully transferable cards can also be redeemed for use on the company’s other offerings, including yacht and helicopter usage.

 


According to Deer Jet vice president Frank Fang, the package price is less expensive than the current charter market price, and the jet card will not expire as long as there are flight hours left. Cardholders can also exchange their use for other aircraft types among the company’s fleet through an easy conversion formula. Unique among such card programs, Deer Jet’s international flight rates are the same as its domestic rates, said Fang. Customers who purchase cards this week during ABACE will receive bonus hours, according to the company.

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