The 328 Group brand is continually growing under the direction of its CEO Dave Jackson as he reduces the Oberpfaffenhofen-based company’s dependence on Dornier 328 turboprop- and 328Jet-related work. Jackson, who has been with 328 since 2006, says he plans to achieve diversification via internal organic expansion, and by acquisition. “We’ve nothing in the pipeline at the moment but we tend to look at one suitable acquisition opportunity per year,” he says. “We are also eyeing other locations for maintenance and completions.”

On June 19, 2013, largely unnoticed by the 3,000+ journalists attending the 2013 Paris Air Show, an event took place on the Daher-Socata stand that marked a significant milestone in European business aviation. On that day au Bourget, the French civil aviation authority, DGAC, issued the first Air Operators Certificate permitting single-engine public transport flights in IFR conditions. Previously, passenger-carrying SE-IFR flights had been forbidden throughout the European Union.

Brian Humphries, president of the EBAA (and formerly its CEO) and probably the best-known face and most-liked business aviation personality in Europe, says he is considering not standing for re-election next March. “I’ll see what they say at the board meeting, but my intention at the moment is not to stand next year,” he told ShowNews.

The African Business Aviation Association, which is celebrating its second birthday this month, has made extraordinary progress since launch under the leadership of its founder and chairman Tarek Ragheb. Show News caught up with Ragheb in Cairo just before EBACE. Apart from AfBAA’s never-ending job of liaising and lobbying with committees from the 54 African Union countries, he is concentrating on widening the nucleus of successful business aviation clusters within countries that are already performing well.

Tony Coe, chairman of the Baltic Air Charter Association since early 2013, has driven policies and practices while positioning BACA at the forefront of key issues that impact the air charter industry. BACA is the world’s largest air charter organization, formed in 1949 and closely associated with London’s famous Baltic Exchange. The work carried out by Coe and the BACA council has already led to an increase of 10% in the membership in a very short time.

Austria’s International Jet Management has obtained a landmark decision from the European Court of Justice – a ruling with major implications for the free movement of air traffic into Germany. The legal dispute lasted five years, with the European Court of Justice making its final ruling in favour of IJM on March 18.

ABS Jets, an executive jet operator with bases at Vaclav Havel Airport in Prague and Bratislava in the Slovak Republic, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. At start-up ABS had 32 employees operating two managed aircraft, a Cessna Citation Bravo and an Embraer Legacy 600. Today the firm has grown into one of the major players in European business aviation. ABS employs more than 200 skilled professionals and operates a managed fleet of 12 aircraft, says CEO Vladimir Petak, with a 13th aircraft – a Legacy 650 – due in a few months.

Lufthansa Technik yesterday took the wraps off its latest weapon to maintain business in a shrinking market for completions of narrowbody VIP jets: a pre-customized VIP cabin for Airbus ACJ and Boeing BBJ business jets. “Lufthansa Technik has a worldwide unique and long-lasting experience in the field of pre-customized and modulated VIP aircraft cabins. There is no other completion center which has gathered that much experience with that kind of cabin outfitting or has done this kind of work so far,” says Walter Heerdt, senior vice president for marketing and sales.