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Back to the future with a turbo prop resurgence

Richard Koe Three bizav news items this month: Pilatus announced 2011 results with the highest turnover and operating profit since their establishment in 1939; fast growing regional airline Sky Work announced the launch of a business aviation venture out of Bern; Hawker Beechcraft verged on Chapter 11, but had a silver lining $50m deal at ABACE. A common denominator? Resurgent interest in a new generation of turbo props for business aviation. The Pilatus results maintain a decade of outstanding sales for the PC-12, the single engine mainstay of Pilatus’ production line. Used widely in corporate aviation and now also in regional airline networks, the Pilatus cannot be chartered in Europe but is a major player in the fractional ownership market. US-based PlaneSense is the largest fractional operator of PC-12s in the world, operating 34 PC-12s. Jet Fly operates a dozen Pilatus on fractional ownership out of Geneva. Hawker Beechcraft, by contrast, have endured a dismal record of sales since 2008. This reflects in part the significant fall off in demand for the mid and light aircraft categories in which they specialise. They’ve also clearly made some strategic and operational errors. But their Beechcraft line of King Airs appears to be the exception, rising above the fray and continuing to dominate turbo prop production. HBC’s ABACE deal involved 10 King Air turboprop aircraft for the Chinese aviation company Avion Pacific Limit. It’s likewise a King Air operation that Sky Work is looking to launch out of Bern. This fleet will partner with a commonly owned luxury hotel group, acting as onward VIP transportation for Sky Work’s incoming customers to reach their holiday locations. Operationally, the fleet is a perfect match for the small and inaccessible regional mountain resorts such as St Moritz, Courcheval and Gstaad. There is in fact a notable discrepancy between public perception of turbo props as ‘business jets’ and their actual performance. In Europe the King Air has been the most popular business aviation aircraft the last 4 years running. In the US, Avantair has built up a 50-aircraft fleet of propellor Piaggio Avanti aircraft, growing its fractional ownership customers faster than any jet competitor. Respectively, the overall turbo prop fleet represents 30% and 40% of all business aviation aircraft in the US and Europe. And Jet Net’s February 2012 Y-on-Y data shows that turbo props are the one category firmly moved into the sub 10% inventory bracket, making it business aviation’s stand out seller’s market. In that year, prices are up 19% (compared to 3% for business jets). The much over-hyped forecast of air-taxi services a decade ago was premised on the viability of super light jets equipped to carry around 4 passengers for short range flights. By jet standards, their capital and operating costs were low. But not low enough to encourage mass participation, and so far their impact has been just incremental to pre-existing light jet charter. In fact the taxi opportunity has always been more accessible to turbo props. In terms of purchase cost, the newest King Airs narrowly out-price VLJs such as the Mustang and Phenom, but 5-10 year old King Air 200s are available on the market for less than $2m. Their reliability and robustness support a feasible lifespan of 20-30 years. This kind of track record is as yet completely unproven for the incoming VLJs. Turbo prop operating cost advantage over VLJs is marked even if it varies by model. Embraer’s Phenom 100 for example is the most ‘frugal’ jet in burning 160+ gallons of fuel per hour. Compare that to the PC-12’s burn of less than 100 gallons. The various standard derogatory stereotypes of turbo prop performance are mostly misleading. Turbo props are comparatively slower than jets, but on the average European sector length of just over 500km, most turbo prop – light jet comparisons differ by a matter of 15 minutes. You could point to extremes, comparing the Cessna Caravan’s 190mph with the 490mph boasted by the Phenom 300. Yet the Caravan is still the mainstay of one of the US’s most successful self-styled taxi operators, Linear. And to take another example, the Piaggio Avanti’s top speed of 460mph easily out paces the Cessna Mustang’s 390mph. It is equally misleading to bracket turbo props in a different category of passenger comfort and capacity to their light jet counterparts. Among other things, the Eclipse 500 VLJ pioneer foundered on its squeezed 3-4 passenger capacity limit, often managing just 1-2 passengers on longer trips or with adverse weather. By contrast Cessna and HBC’s turbo props can easily accommodate 6-8 passengers. The PC-12 has a comparatively enormous cabin volume of 330 cubic feet. Compare that to Cessna’s CJ1 light jet’s 186 cubic feet. The PC-12 is exceptional in combining payload with a range of more than 1400 nautical miles, competing with a mid size Citation X. The King Air 200 900m range is easily competitive with the leading VLJs. And it’s not just range that promotes the turbo prop as an attractive alternative to light jets, but airport access. VLJs were touted for their nimble runway performance but in Europe add only 50 or so airports to those already accessible to light jets. By comparison, turbo props can access a further 40-50 paved runways, and many have the ability to utilise several hundred unpaved strips. The turbo prop production pipeline at HBC, Pilatus, Piaggio and Cessna demonstrate the ongoing development of turbo prop technology, even as the market’s attention is largely focused on jets. In terms of range, comfort, and reliability turbo props are, if anything, closing the gap on jets. So why doesn’t industry do more to promote this turbo prop capability? To illustrate, Avinode’s online market place captures a large proportion of all jets for charter in its database of 2000+ aircraft. Yet it only features 27 King Airs of the several hundred available in the market. The obvious catalyst for turbo props to accelerate their attractiveness to business aviation should be fuel cost. This is a no-brainer in commercial aviation, shown by the strong demand for regional network operators like the ATR. If demand is not materialising in the same way in business aviation it’s because of the lingering misperception that turbo props are somehow short of the mark for the purpose of flying privately. Perhaps this is true in terms of prestige. With the imposition of ETS, and much wider awareness of the industry’ green responsibilities, the comparatively poor-man image of turbo props is surely set to change.

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