EBACE 2014 Day 3 Briefs

“We’re open for business,” says Stanley Bugeja, European Business Aviation Association board member and president of MBAA, the Malta Business Aviation Association. “Come here.” Malta, the Mediterranean island country with the lowest taxes in the EU, is “giving London a good run for its money,” Bugeja says, with a strong presence of IT, banking and insurance firms.

The company is boosting its focus on solutions and innovation under a plan, announced this week, to quadruple its investment in R&D for product, service and technology from EUR50 million over the past five years to EUR200 million over the next four years. At the same time, it has restructured its organization to coordinate R&D company-wide for the airline and VIP markets.

The first two production ARJ21 regional airliners are being outfitted ahead of local certification, but in a surprise move on May 10, Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China accepted an order for a corporate version from Shanghai Salt Merchants Group Ltd. The existence of an ARJ21-700 bizjet was unsuspected until now, although the manufacturer’s “hope that Salt Merchants Group is able to provide valuable opinions on this jet” suggests that an interior configuration is still to be defined.

The large and privately owned Marshall Aerospace and Defence Group (Marshall ADG), which has a turnover of some £1.5 billion, is looking to increase its civil and business aviation work from 5% to 18%.

The Airbus new ACJ319 Elegance concept is set to make European debut.

Altitude Aerospace Interiors marked the first quarter 2014 with the customer delivery of its first green Boeing Business Jet completion, and the center is already at work outfitting a second green BBJ at its facilities in Auckland, New Zealand.

Greenpoint Technologies of Kirkland, Washington is a long way from its home on the U.S. West Coast but, as the first completion center to take on the outfitting of an executive 787, Greenpoint and its sister companies are a major presence here at EBACE 2014. The first of two 787 BBJ completion projects is due to arrive later this year, and Greenpoint’s wide-body outfitting facility at Moses Lake, Washington is in the final stages of renovation for the big VIP variant of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner.