The Asian Business Aviation Association (AsBAA) held its annual general meeting at the start of the week, the day before ABACE 2016 opened. It was held at the Space Eagle, across the road from the Hawker Pacific Shanghai FBO and the hangar/apron area where ABACE is held.
The meeting was attended by 90 AsBAA members, with chairman Charlie Mularski and other members of the AsBAA board of governors summarizing the highlights from 2015 and outlining plans going forward. They also presented the results of the interactive “market perceptions” survey that was undertaken to help show how AsBAA can better help the industry’s future development.
“In summary, 2015 was a great year of successful events,“ said Mularski. “A lot of regulatory and infrastructure challenges but unprecedented working relationships with civil aviation departments, great brand building, and continued and effective engagement of all board and leadership members.”
He said that 2015 represented AsBAA’s “strongest year since inception more than 10 years ago. However, this success comes with a high investment both of time and money.”
Ed Bolen, president and CEO of NBAA, also delivered a presentation at the annual gathering. He reflected on ABACE’s “significant growth since 2012” and thanked AsBAA for its help in co-hosting ABACE.
AsBAA is a not-for-profit organization that now has more than 100 members. “Great progress has been made addressing regulatory challenges and in engaging governments in Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, Greater China and Vietnam,” it noted after the meeting.
Mularski said AsBAA would continue to focus on key challenges in the coming years, and said the group would “greatly appreciate more help from industry, including infrastructure limitation at Hong Kong International Airport, Indonesia regulatory limitations and member access to market intelligence, CAAC data and CAAC meeting, among others.”
Finally, he reviewed AsBAA’s financial year saying that membership was up 25 percent last year, with a new “small company” category being introduced and individual membership levels increasing overall uptake. Meanwhile, expenditures were cut by 25 percent and total funding “lowered significantly due to the investments made in more networking events.”
In a statement, AsBAA thanked its “platinum” members, “including Boeing Business Jets, Bombardier, Embraer Executive Jets, Gulfstream, Hong Kong Business Aviation Centre, Jeppesen, L’Voyage and Universal Weather & Aviation.”
