cessna

British Airways is launching a private jet service within North America and the Caribbean. The partnership with CitationAir, the private jet charter subsidiary of Cessna Aircraft, allows BA to skirt around its foreign carrier status. The service dubbed PrivateConnect promises "no-frills" private jet service that allows passengers to book online and pay with a credit card. The cost ranges from $6,000 to $10,000 per plane per hour depending on the type of aircraft and will be available to anyone who has has flown with the carrier in the past 12 months or is a member of the BA executive club program as well as organizations that have a corporate account with British Airways. BA already flies to 19 destinations in America and has an arrangement with American Airline for domestic flights in the U.S. As part of the arrangement, CitationAir customers will receive complimentary chauffeured transportation from the FBO to the British Airways terminal when flying internationally on BA.

Despite some recent troubles as reported by my colleague Deirdre Woollard, Cessna is finally set to begin deliveries of its long-awaited $9 million Citation CJ4 light business jet later this year, featuring improved performance and the company's most stylishly decorated and ergonomically designed cabin ever. Electronically-controlled twin Williams-Rolls FJ44-4A turbofan engines allow for a maximum cruising speed of 500 mph at 35,000 ft. and are quiet and fuel efficient. New swept-back wings borrowed from the Cessna Sovereign help out on aerodynamics for short takeoffs, quick climbs and improved acceleration. Plush new "luxury sedan" style seats and a new sidewall configuration provide more leg, seat and shoulder room. It's also outfitted like a high-end media room thanks to its revolutionary Venue Cabin Management System with amenities such as XM radio, CD and hi-def Blu-Ray DVD player, seat monitors, moving maps and input stations for MP3 players, gaming systems and more.

[via JamesList]

Private jet travel is back! When we were in the depths of the financial crisis, the best way to fly was a sure way to attract criticism, especially when the Detroit auto executives showed up before Congress a year ago and had to explain why ailing companies were forced to shell out for the perk. Well, the private jets are coming back into style, but it's more for pleasure than business.

Business jet manufacturers delivered only 615 in the first three quarters of 2009, a steep decline of 37.8 percent year-over-year, according to the General Aviation Manufacturers Association. According to Jack Petlon, CEO of Cessna, though, there are signs of life. "With the financial collapse that occurred there was a lot of anger, a lot of hurt, a lot of people reaching out and striking at what became an image and the image was a corporate business jet," he told Forbes. He continued, "We as an industry are now spending our time righting that wrong perception."

Here are four facts you may not have know about business (and private) aviation:

The slowdown in the private jet industry has doomed, at least temporarily, Cessna's most promising new plane. Cessna has announced drastic measures to trim expenses including laying off an additional 2,300 people,lengthening the summer production stoppage, suspending its Citation Columbus program and closing its Bend, Oregon plant. The Columbus program was still in the developmental stages but it would have been the fastest and largest jet in the Cessna fleet with a range of 4,000 nautical miles. It was supposed to be ready in 2014 and state and local governments in Kansas had allotted millions in incentives to entice Cessna to build the production plant in the state. The Wichita Eagle reports that the money will be repaid through increased payroll taxes.

The private jet industry has shrunk dramatically in the wake of several key factors, last summer's fuel price spike, the recession, and a public outcry that has led corporate jet users to decrease their reliance on private jet travel. While last year Cessna planned to deliver around 500 in 2009, it is now aiming at producing around 300 planes. The company has received a flood of cancellations for planes that were slated to be delivered over the next couple of years.

More bad news for Cessna, it will be cutting back production of the Citation CJ, Sovereign and Citation X business jets at the main Wichita production facility. Cessna will be furloughing some workers on the production lines for these planes. The new furloughs are in addition to earlier job cut announcements. While Cessna had originally planned to build over 535 jets this year it now is planning to only produce 375. Cessna is also slowing the engineering work on the planned Citation Columbus large jet which was slated to be ready in 2014 but could be pushed further out.

Last week I briefly touched on the potential layoffs for jetmaker Cessna, Now the Wichita Eagle has all the grisly details. It appears that Cessna Aircraft will cut about 500 jobs in Wichita. The laid-off workers will be given 60-day notices in the next few weeks.

The news follows on the heels of an incentives package worth tens of millions of dollars from the state designed to ensure that Cessna would build its Citation Columbus plant in Wichita. It still plans to do that and by 2014 there should be 1,000 people working there. Unfortunately that is a long way off. For now there are layoffs both at the Wichita plant where Cessna employs 12,000 people and in Oregon where 165 employees will be laid off from the Bend, Oregon plant. Cessna was planning to deliver a record 535 business jets in 2009 but some of the customers who were slated for shipment have asked to defer delivery until the economy is a bit rosier.

Another Wichita-based aviation company Hawker Beechcraft cut five percent of its work force on Friday about 490 people as it lowered target production numbers.The aviation companies are bullish on their long term survival and see this trimming back as a necessity to keep going in lean times.

This summer, luxury charter service V1 Jets opened up its seaplane service from Manhattan to the Hamptons (formerly reserved for members) to anyone with the price of a ticket, and it's proved to be very popular with the gliteratti. The 40 minute trip on an 8-passenger Cessna, which costs $495 one-way, has been taken by the likes of models Adriana Lima and Petra Nemcova, actors Pierce Brosnan and Jeremy Piven, and mogul Barry Diller. V1 Jets was founded in 2003 by hedge fund manager Andrew Zarrow who envisioned a way to utilize the excessive amount of "dead legs" created by private aircraft returning empty after delivering clients to their destinations, saving money and resources in the process.

Given that we've seen several small business-class-only outfits close up shop recently and one of the biggest U.S. air taxis also scaled back, it seems like madness to create Europe's first air taxi service right now. But Forbes reports that Peter Leiman and Cameron Ogden, two Harvard Business School graduates are launching the new private jet taxi service, Blink, on June 12. Blink's current flight plans take you through much of Western Europe and the the tickets are up to 25% more expensive than regular business-class travel for seats on their four-seater Cessna Citation Mustang. Blink is off to a healthy start, they've ordered 45 of Cessna jets and have received$30 million in investment which sounds like a lot but unfortunately a fledgling airline business dealing with today's fuel prices could go through that money pretty fast. Here's hoping the name Blink doesn't refer to how long they'll stay in business.

In 2005, Lufthansa started their private jet program, partnering with NetJets. Things must be going well Lufthansa has announced their plans to have a private jet fleet ready for summer 2008. The company will receive seven private jets from Cessna soon and will continue to work with private jet companies. They plan to offer four different categories of planes ranging from four to 12 seats. The number of private jet flights for Lufthansa rose 26% last year. The German airline will be the first European airline to develop its own fleet of business jets.

A few months ago, I mentioned televangelist Creflo Dollar and his Rolls-Royce. Dollar is far from the only minister who preaches a "prosperity gospel." Another popular pastor, Mac Hammond of Living Word Christian Center in Minnesota is having to give up one of his pricey toys, his own private jet. Hammond is reportedly marketing the Cessna 650 business jet aggressively and plans to reinvest the money in the ministry. The Minnesota Star-Tribune also reports that the Living Word has also cut its hourlong TV show on Sunday mornings in half to save money.The jet has gotten Hammond in trouble before. Last year, the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed complaints with the IRS saying that Hammond finagled a $2 million loan deal with Living Word and got money from a lease-back deal on the plane. Hammond is also the owner of a stunt plane, a 1995 Flugzeugbau EA-300L. He has used the private plane both to minister in other places and to travel to his homes in Florida. The jet has room for nine passengers and is listed at $3.9 million.

The latest light sport aircraft is this small plane, the Skycatcher from Cessna. The Skycatcher has a Garmin glass cockpit, and a Teledyne Continential O-200D engine. The lightweight plane has been selling at an introductory price of $109,500 (for the first 1,000 orders) and has been selling fast, receiving 400 orders within the first two days of the Airventure conference. The plane will cruise at 118 knots (136 miles per hour) with a range of 470 nautical miles. The Skycatcher website features more photos and videos of the new plane. Cessna plans to build 700 planes a year once the assembly line is up to production in 2011. The company plans to certify the SkyCatcher in 2008 with the first customer delivery scheduled for 2009.

Add another esteemed member to the list of celebrity pilots. Joining Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt is Morgan Freeman. Freeman is so interested in planes that he recently made the pilgrimage to AirVenture 2007 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin to check out the planes. Freeman, who has been interested in planes since he was a teenager, had his first lesson in 2002. He now flies a Cessna 414 and a Citation 501SP. At AirVenture 2007 he took the helicopter tour and when asked said the plane he most wished he could fly is the F-86 Sabre.

Need to get someplace in a hurry? Forbes has your back.

Planes made by Dessault, Cessna and Gulfstream offer luxury and speed, most of them traveling at speeds above Mach 0.9 while providing an internet connection and TVs pumping DVD playback or a satellite steam. The Cessna Citation X tops the list, hitting Mach 0.92 and climbing to 43,000 feet in just 30 minutes, followed by planes such as the Gulfstream G550 and G450, which offer perks ranging from lighting sensors to security systems.

On the big commercial passenger jet side, the Boeing 747-8, part of Lufthansa and Emirates Airlines fleets and the Boeing 777, flying for British Airways and airlines, fly at speeds of 650 miles per hour while seating a whopping 400 people or more.

Click through to see a slideshow of the world's fastst passenger jets.

[Source: Forbes]