JetBird pushes ahead

Manufacturers of business jets are feeling the pinch of the economic downturn. Cessna announced 2,000 redunadancies last week on top of 500 announced in December as customers defer orders. One manufacturer, Eclipse filed for Chapter 11 before Christmas following the collapse of Florida based DayJet which had almost 1,400 Eclipse VLJs on order. 

Consolidation is also taking place - Stefan Vilner, Chief Executive of JetBird is also head of the European Air Taxi Association. He says that the group had fourteen founding members last year and now there are only five left.

Mr. Vilner confirms that Irish startup JetBird is pushing ahead with it's plans to start flying this spring. The company still plans to take delivery of 13 Embraer Phenom 100 this year, 25 in 2010 and twenty per year in the period 2011 to 2013. The company is the launch customer for the Embraer Phenom 100 and to date has placed orders for one hundred Phenom variant aircraft.