EBACE 2024 kicked off on Tuesday morning in Geneva with keynote presentations that were largely focused on business aviation's efforts toward sustainability and current criticism of the industry. NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen said the show’s focus is centered around innovation, safety, and workforce, and touted the organization’s “mission to net zero” emissions and the opportunity to “shape the future of flight.”
“EBACE is the place to be if you're buying or selling an aircraft internationally,” he said. “But it's also the place to be to talk about the big issues, challenges, and opportunities that our industry has together.”
Notably, EBAA secretary general Holger Krahmer, five months into his tenure, made his first appearance at an EBACE. He noted that this year’s event comes at a time of “significant change and challenge” for the industry.
“More than ever, our sector is increasingly under scrutiny and it is vital to highlight the essential role we play in Europe's socioeconomic landscape,” he said. “Business aviation is not just about transportation. It's a driver of economic growth, providing highly skilled jobs, fostering innovation, and supporting various industries.”
Krahmer also pushed back against recent criticism of the sector and calls to ban business aviation outright. “Such demands do little for environmental protection and undermine the principles of freedom and socio-economic progress,” he added.
He also made note of this week’s announcement that the EBAA is joining sustainability initiative Climbing Fast, which aims for business aviation to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. “We are campaigning, leveraging our unique position to champion and deploy the initiative in Europe's complex regulatory and political landscape,” he said.
Delphine Bachmann, state councilor for Geneva, also made note of the criticisms of business aviation. “Some people continue to see business aviation as a threat to the environment and a major contributor to global warming,” she said. “I think I can say that if our countries value freedom of speech, there are peaceful and respectful ways to express it.”
Eurocontrol director of the Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre John Santurbano spoke on the challenges faced by the “increasing pressure on sustainability” and how the aerospace industry is perceived by society.
“I'm convinced that we can just cope with these challenges if we go on investing in new technologies and innovation,” he said. “That's why I think it's really important to invest in engineers and competent young people.”
Santurbano also talked about management systems as a means to handle the expense of air traffic controllers to use them efficiently in curbing delays, as well as prioritizing flights with curfew procedures. “The idea of the system is, for instance, to foresee peaks of traffic and to adjust the need of air traffic controllers and the rostering of air traffic controllers to the traffic peaks during the day and during the night,” he said.
Explorer and environmentalist Bertrand Piccard of the Solar Impulse Foundation encouraged attendees to expand their perceptions of what is possible in sustainability. He cited his own record-breaking around-the-world balloon flight and solar-powered flight as allegories for new possibilities towards sustainability.
“The impossible is only in the mindset of the people who believe the future is an extrapolation of the past,” he said.
Piccard is also currently working to develop a hydrogen-powered aircraft. “We need to restore enthusiasm and we need to show what we can achieve even if some people believe it's impossible,” he said. “Aviation was the dream of humankind before we could fly. Since we could fly, it was the dream of flying longer, higher, faster, better.”