Business aviation group prepares for takeoff
Tony Quesada
Staff Writer
JACKSONVILLE -- People involved in business aviation in Northeast Florida will soon have a group to provide a unified voice and a forum for networking.
The North Florida Business Aviation Association will hold its inaugural meeting, a luncheon, at noon Jan. 18 at Signature Flight Support at Jacksonville International Airport.
Steven Brown, senior vice president for the National Business Aviation Association, will speak at the meeting about national issues. Although the new group will be independent of the NBAA, it will work with the national group on matters of mutual concern.
The NFBAA's central purpose is to foster the development of North Florida's business aviation community, said Pat Mulvihill, executive vice president of SkyPLUS Technologies LLC and a key driver behind forming the group.
The idea of a local association began taking hold last year during a series of meetings that included representatives from the Jacksonville Aviation Authority and two of the local general aviation fixed-base operators.
By September, the participants decided they were ready, Mulvihill said. Soon after, he went to Atlanta to spend time with the Georgia Business Aviation Association and look at its business model, including its Web site. The NFBAA plans to have a Web site up in its first 60 days.
With the GBAA's model and guidance from an NBAA regional representative, an organizing committee was formed. The committee included Mulvihill; Tim Wray, general manager of Signature Flight Support at JIA and Cecil Field; Jonathan Buff, general manager of SheltAir Aviation Services at JIA; William Blackard, an aviation lawyer; Todd Mulkey, site financial representative for Gulfstream Aerospace Corp.'s Brunswick, Ga., office; Chip Snowden, chief administration officer at JAA; John Freeman, international department director at Cornerstone Regional Development Partnership; and Dennis Jones, director of aviation for CSX Corp.
"I've always been impressed by the level of corporate aviation in Jacksonville," Buff said. "I'm surprised no one has put this together previously."
Jones, the lone corporate flight department director on the committee, is eager to have a means to show the benefits of business aviation to Northeast Florida.
"NBAA does a wonderful job throughout the world," said Jones, one of 62 people to have earned NBAA's certified aviation manager designation. "But you need something like this on a regional basis."
He also hopes the NFBAA will be a resource for new companies with corporate flight departments "to come to us and find out about the business aviation atmosphere."
Mulvihill is looking to attract 40 to 50 members in the first year. The association is open to anyone connected to business aviation, including pilots, corporate flight department personnel, fixed-base operators, aircraft maintenance personnel and airport personnel.
Details, such as membership dues and meeting schedules, have yet to be finalized, but Mulvihill anticipates holding eight to 10 meetings a year. He expects each meeting will include time to focus on aviation safety and that the group will include a charitable component, such as supporting Angel Flight Inc., which provides free air transportation for medical patients.
Also, the organizing committee hasn't chosen officers so that people attending the initial meeting can be considered.
The number of NBAA member companies has more than doubled since 1990 to about 7,600. As of early 2004, Florida had the most members with 750, followed by California, 718, and Texas, 716.
The national association doesn't have local chapters, but it does encourage local groups to form. There are about 60 local and state business aviation associations.
"There's a lot we [the NBAA] can do on a national level," Brown said. "But when it comes to local airport issues, the government wants to hear from local groups. Local groups have instant credibility."
They also provide a pool of contacts to muster local support for national issues -- people who speak to lawmakers as constituents while backed by local and national organizations.
One issue the local association will certainly get active about is user fees.
Officials for the Air Transport Association, the nation's major airline trade organization, have argued that business aviation hasn't paid its fair share to maintain the nation's airports, which many say are underfunded. And they suggest airport user fees as a means to increase the FAA's revenues.
The NBAA counters that business aviation pays fuel taxes that more than cover its impact on the nation's air traffic system.
"That whole system doesn't make any sense," Mulvihill said of user fees. "It will do more harm than it will raise any types of revenues."
Like Mulvihill, SheltAir's Buff expects the NFBAA's initial focus will be on giving a local voice to national issues, such as user fees.
"The way you combat this kind of a threat," Buff said, "is through grass-roots efforts with local representatives."
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