By Bob Hobbi
Founder & CEO, ServiceElements
The future of aviation is railroads. This was the message written on a demonstrator’s sign during this year’s EBACE in Geneva, outside of the Palexpo convention center, where there was a group of about 100 people demonstrating against business aviation. This reflects the state of affairs which our industry is facing. It made me very sad to see our amazing industry being demonstrated against, as if somehow, we are the villains.
The theme and the focus of EBACE was sustainability, and it became obvious to me that the demonstrators were not focused on sustainability. That’s just an excuse. Their signs and placards made it very clear that they were against aviation, in general. This is nonsense.
My fellow business aviation professionals, we must step up and take over this unrealistic and ridiculous narrative. We need to take on these incredibly negative and foolish assertions that, somehow, aviation – more specifically business aviation – is a problem for the world.
While our amazing NBAA and EBAA teams did an incredible job of displaying our industry’s focus and progress toward sustainability and efficiency, I realized that, as individual professionals in aviation, our focus needs to change. There is a movement afoot that is portraying us as villains. We must take on these misinformed movements and address them with the vigor, poise, and professionalism with which we have always conducted ourselves.
Plane shaming is not new. From the 2008 executive travels by the heads of GM, Ford, and Chrysler executives to Washington DC in order to ask Congress for bailout funds, to pop star Taylor Swift’s flight from Japan to Las Vegas for the 2024 Super Bowl, the negative public scrutiny for flying and operating private aircraft has often been quick to pass judgment over perceived excess.
It is time we begin a stronger and even more unified campaign to educate the world about the critical benefits that business aviation has brought and continues to bring to our world. Swift’s travels are a great example of how private aviation enables the business of 4 sold-out concerts in Tokyo and attendance at the sold-out Super Bowl – with an increased viewing audience that many credit to the singer’s much anticipated arrival.
While some groups may target business aviation and point out the industry’s carbon footprint, the truth is that both safety and sustainability are core elements to business aviation – an industry that supports millions of jobs across various sectors, including manufacturing, operations, maintenance, and support services.
We can no longer afford to sit on the sidelines and allow the misguided and misinformed to control the narrative about our valuable industry. I refuse to be shamed into thinking that a lifetime of work, blood, sweat, and tears is somehow a bad thing for this world. The incredible and honorable men and women who have helped to build this extraordinary industry of ours deserve better.
I am proud of us. I am proud of what we bring to the globe. Business aviation facilitates the global economy, enabling time-efficient travel to multiple and often isolated locales. It facilitates international collaboration, research, and aid, producing and transporting vaccines and other solutions to potential world crises. I am proud of the work that we do every day. I am proud of my fellow industry professionals. I am proud.
We need to raise our voices to the world and let it be known that we are an industry which helps to uplift and advance the cause of humankind, which has been, in part, accomplished by using business aviation. Aviation is one of the pillars of the incredible journey humankind has achieved. And this continues to be true today more than ever. Business aviation has played a pivotal role in bringing us to this juncture. I am not going to be shamed into thinking or believing that, somehow, this was the wrong path and vehicle. We know who we are and what we do.
If we don’t turn the corner on this issue and just continue to be defensive, the problem will persist or may even worsen in the years to come. Let’s begin by asking a simple question: Are we proud of our industry? If the answer is yes, then we need to display this on our faces and hold our heads up high. We can no longer run to work or to the airport or the hangar with one hand covering our face because we don’t want anyone to see us going to work on private aircraft. We need to educate our users and operators to stand up to the nay sayers and their misinformed rhetoric.
There will always be operations that rely on the privacy that business aviation affords. Safety, security, and world markets depend on the anonymity that private aviation provides its end users and their movements. Today, we still have aircraft owners and users who are very sheepish about people knowing that they use business aircraft. They feel forced to hide and fly incognito. This type of operation creates a culture of guilt and shamefulness. But why? Are we doing something wrong? Obviously, we are not, so nothing should prevent us from touting the substantial benefits of business aviation.
But how can we show pride in what we do while we are self-imposing an untenable perception of something elite or solely for the wealthy. We are promoting our own self-loathing. Therefore, we need to display our well-earned pride. Only in doing so will we attract the future generation of business aviation professionals. When
we are outspoken about the industry’s long track record of success in emissions reduction, we can attract new investments in technologies that enhance efficiency and sustainability. We need to show the future possibilities that business aviation can bring to the world. This culture needs to be reversed, or else it will continue to hinder and harm our future.
Many may say, “Well, that’s why we have NBAA, NATA, EBAA, and other industry associations, to speak to our cause and defend us.” My fellow business aviation professionals, we cannot continue to defer this responsibility to our hard working and diligent industry associations. The forces against us are powerful and can be overwhelming. Unchecked, they can become louder and more powerful.
The demonstrators at EBACE this year were the same ones who attacked the GVA (Geneva, Switzerland) last year, damaging and chaining themselves to aircraft, to then take control of the narrative through the media with such statements as “private jets burn out future,” or “private jets drown our hope.”
We need to stand up alongside our organizations. We all need to belly up to the bar and start helping our associations. As an industry, we do a great job at educating ourselves within the industry, but we need to stop only preaching to the choir. We need to put a greater effort into educating the public as well as aircraft owners and users to stop being shamed into believing that they are somehow bad for flying private aircraft.
We need to rise and strategically build a constituency that understands the value we bring to the world and the global economy. The decision to hide and continue being sheepish is not going to bode well for our future and our industry’s.