Orlando
It’s home to this month’s big bizav convention–which won’t surprise anyone who knows the city
By Mark Huber - October 1, 2008
Orlando is becoming a major hub and resource center for corporate aviation, and for good reason: its metropolitan area boasts an unusually high number of corporate aircraft maintenance and crew training facilities. It also has perhaps the densest concentration of world-class fixed-base operators (FBOs) in the U.S. As such, flight departments are able to schedule pilot and technician training concurrent with significant aircraft maintenance, all at the same place.
Three large airports–Orlando International, Orlando Executive and Kissimmee–are within 15 miles of Orlando’s Orange County Convention Center. Farther north, Sanford provides a secondary international gateway and plenty of real estate for maintenance, repair and overhaul work.
These natural synergies were among the factors that led fractional-share company NetJets to consider moving its operations headquarters here recently. Ultimately, NetJets did not move its operations center, but many other aviation companies have opened major facilities in the area–including Cessna, FlightSafety International and SimCom. The National Business Aviation Association, meanwhile, has made Orlando a frequent venue for its mammoth annual convention.
Orlando International: Big and Busy
Orlando International hosts the city’s largest concentration of aviation companies. From 1962 to 1974, it was transformed from an Air Force base known as McCoy to the 13th busiest commercial U.S. airport. (It handled 34.8 million passengers in 2006.) A joint operating agreement between the Air Force and Orlando became a model for airports across the country, but ultimately the military decided to redeploy its Strategic Air Command aircraft based there.
Two factors spurred commercial use of McCoy: the advent of turbojets and their longer runway requirements and Walt Disney’s plan to build the vast Disney World amusement complex that would attract an international clientele. As central Florida’s population subsequently exploded, corporate aviation, and the infrastructure to support it, grew throughout the region.
Cessna established the Orlando Citation Service Center in 1983. Today, the 24/7 facility occupies 13 acres on the northwest corner of Orlando International. It has 200,000 square feet under roof, including 97,000 square feet of hangar space, and features a large ramp with underground refueling facilities, classrooms, a paint room, wash bays and inventory storage. It is the country’s second-largest Citation Service Center (Wichita’s is bigger), with nearly 250 employees and a throughput of more than 70 airplanes per week.
FlightSafety International’s Orlando Learning Center is across the street and it’s not uncommon for a flight crew to drop its Citation at Cessna’s center and then head over to FSI for recurrent training. At Orlando, FSI offers training for the Citation I, Citation CJs, Citation Excel, Citation Sovereign and Citation X as well as the Beechcraft 1900 and Embraer 135/145 regional jets.
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