2022 NBAA-BACE to Highlight New NBAA Owner-Pilot Association Coalition

Sept. 19, 2022

This year’s NBAA Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (NBAA-BACE) will feature education sessions, networking events and more tailored to an important segment of the business aviation community: owner operators.

Building on last year’s owner/single-pilot pavilion at the show, and the announcement earlier this year of the association’s new Owner Pilot Association Coalition (OPAC), NBAA is invested in ensuring this segment of the industry is well represented at NBAA-BACE.

“We’d like to take the pulse of the OPAC membership and learn what NBAA can do to better support them, so we’re going to feature coalition member associations at our show,” said Andrew Broom, NBAA’s senior vice president strategy, marketing and innovation. “We’re also going to their shows to talk to their members directly.”

NBAA representatives, including Broom, plan to attend OPAC-member events beginning this week, continuing the effort later this fall and into next spring.

At NBAA-BACE, the show will feature a dedicated area on the exhibit hall floor for OPAC member booths, so their representatives can meet and network with peers, as well as a special reception for their members on Tuesday, Oct. 18. In addition to booth space, the convention will feature a Small Operator Symposium and the Single Pilot Safety Standdown, both aligned to OPAC’s member audience.

This year’s standdown theme is “Breaking the Chain of Runway Excursions,” and one of the presentations supporting that theme will be an in-depth look at the “Safe to Land” initiative spearheaded by the Citation Jet Pilots (CJP) safety and education foundation and retired astronaut and safety committee chair Charlie Precourt.

Additionally, the NBAA National Safety Forum runs throughout the three days of the show, with presentations on loss of control in-flight, runway excursions, controlled flight into terrain and more.

NBAA OPAC

The purpose in forming NBAA OPAC is to collaborate on activities that will enhance safety and better serve the owner-pilot community. Some of the pressing problems the coalition intends to tackle include how to offer aging pilots assistance in obtaining comprehensive aviation insurance, how to develop user-friendly, easily accessible data collection tools to enhance safety and addressing ATC efficiencies, all while identifying NBAA resources that will best meet owner-pilot needs.

OPAC is currently comprised of the Cirrus Vision Pilots and Owners, Citation Jet Pilots Association, Embraer Jet Operators Association, Malibu M-Class Owner and Pilot Association, Pilatus Owners & Pilots Association and the TBM Owner Pilot Association.

Trent Corcia, CEO of the 1,400-plus-member CJP Association, has been supportive of the coalition from the beginning.

“What a great way to leverage the brain trusts of other associations and establish best practices from the lessons learned tackling and solving similar problems, because of course, they’re having the same issues as CJP,” he said. “The more we collaborate with each other, the more effective the brainstorming efforts will be and the stronger our associations will become. This coalition is like “a rising tide lifting all boats.”