The Practicalities of the Olympics panel at BGAD

‘The Practicalities of the Olympics’ for
business aviation will be debated at the forthcoming Business Aviation and
General Aviation Day (BGAD) to be held at Cambridge Airport on 20 September. 
An industry panel will discuss some crucial issues facing operators, charter
providers, FBOs and the 30-plus UK
airports that have been identified to handle business and general aviation
flights for this important summer event.  

Practicalities to be addressed will
include when to start security screening of new employees, the buying in of
fuel, provision for aircraft parking and securing ground transportation. 
Along with, which airports are going to be declared 24/7 during the period, and
how and when operators and charter brokers should go about booking their slots
and parking stands at airports?

Industry players have been voicing their concern for some time
about the strict restrictions and proposed airspace changes being placed on
London airspace to the extent that they are starting to pose the question, has
this great opportunity already been missed or can it be recovered with
persuasion to central government?   One concession has been the
recent move to reduce the timeframe on full airspace restrictions.  It is
now 14 July to 15 August 2012. 
Separate, geographically smaller, airspace restrictions will cover the London
2012 Paralympic Games from 16 August 2012 to 12 September 2012.

During the Olympics all take off and
departure slots are to be allocated and slots at peak times will be in heavy
demand.  On top of their existing day to day activity, the 14 principal
business airports in the UK
are expected to handle more than 110,000 movements during the 31-day peak period,
according to the UK DfT.

The Olympics panel will comprise: Trevor
Jones, director Client Relations of Gama Aviation; David Macdonald, director –
Private Jets, Air Partner plc; Archie Garden will represent Cambridge Airport;
James Cole, director International of Airport Co-ordination Ltd (ACL) the
leaders in slot co-ordination which is working closely with DfT and its
consultant Atkins on accommodating Olympics traffic.   They will be
joined by a senior representative from ExecuJet, which runs eight FBOs in
Europe, South Africa and Australasia.