In two weeks, 25,000 to 30,000 people will gather in Orlando to attend the 67th annual National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) 65th Annual Meeting & Convention—the largest civil aviation event of its kind in the world. The JetOptions team will be attending the NBAA 2014 convention. But it is not so much the huge attendance that makes the NBAA show such a momentous event—or spectacle, depending on one’s perspective—as its energy level. It is palpable throughout, and it’s infectious.
NBAA 2012 Orlando Convention’s static display shown here. JetOptions attended the convention
That energy most certainly will be manifest when the show officially gets under way on Oct. 20. Much of the industry has endured six difficult years of struggling to return to its heady days just prior to 2008-2009, when the worst recession since the Great Depression gripped the U.S. While the industry still has a long way to go, it is making progress, and there is a general sense that the recovery is real and gaining steam.
To its credit, most manufacturers took the long view and continued to invest in new-product development even as they struggled to stabilize their businesses operations in the face of dramatic sales declines, with the exception of the ultra-long-range segment. Products tend to stimulate demand, and there will be announcements at the show of new business jets coming to market.
