Recently in MEBA 2010 Category

DUBAI -- Flightglobal's coverage of the Middle East Business Aviation show is a wrap here, but we wanted to make sure you saw the daily news paper we authored from the show. We put together three MEBA issues of Flight Daily News, which should give you a perspective on the show, which is smaller than the mega events of NBAA in the US and EBACE in Europe. We hope you walk away from our digital coverage of MEBA with a sense of the insatiable appetite for aviation in the Middle East which continues to grow at an astonishing pace. Enjoy. 

DUBAI -- Airbus has yet to decide if the smallest member of the A320 family, the A318, will receive the company's new engine option (neo), though if it does happen, the airframer's corporate jetliner business will drive the decision.

"Clearly the case for the A318 is on the corporate jet side." says Francois Chazelle, vice president Airbus corporate and private aviation.

As a commercial platform, the 110-seat A318, powered with CFM International CFM56-5B or Pratt & Whitney PW6000 engines, has fallen flat in the marketplace, as has its 737-600 competitor, having sold just 60 for airlines.

An additional 23 A318s have been sold as the Elite model of the Airbus Corporate Jetliner family, which now represent all the outstanding orders for the type.

The A318 also competes in the same market as the 110 to 125-seat CS100, the smaller of two CSeries models being developed by Bombardier, which will enter service in 2013.

The A318 remains in a commercial niche today, operating, for example, as an 32-seat all business class operation for British Airways out of London City Airport to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York with a westbound fuel and customs stop in Shannon, Ireland.

With rough technical specifications for an A318neo undefined, it remains unclear whether or not the combination of sharklets and a new engine would be able to fly the westbound mission without the stop.

Bombardier has said it is able to fly the British Airways trans-atlantic mission non-stop with the CS100, fitted with its Pratt & Whitney PW1524G engines.

Airbus announced December 1 it had selected the PW1100G and Leap-X starting with the A320neo in 2016, later extending to the A321 and A319.

DUBAI -- We're now all set up here at MEBA and we had a partial working day here. While the show doesn't officially begin until Tuesday, business aviation news will begin flowing on Monday in earnest. Interestingly enough, this brilliant sunset is the last of my 27th year and I'll be celebrating another successful trip around the Sun on Tuesday. Thanks everyone for making it a wonderful and incredibly memorable year. Onward, indeed.