BA-Meetup Plans Growth in Europe
George Larson george_larson@bellsouth.net
With a successful meeting held on the Monday prior to the recent EBACE three-day event in Geneva, Switzerland, Bud Slabbaert, organizer of the "BA-Meetup" event, says he is encouraged by recent support from EBAA and NBAA. "[NBAA director of seminars] Sandy Wirtz stopped by and saw we had about 50 people and congratulated us," said Slabbaert, who adds that the feedback from those in attendance encourages him to proceed with planning for another similar event in 2010.
Slabbaert believes Europe needs an informal meeting during which all members of the European aviation community can get together to exchange marketing information and form alliances. His inspiration was NBAA's Schedulers and Dispatchers meetings and similar vertical-community gatherings. Cost is a factor, he says, in that it's expensive for European aviation professionals to travel to the United States for all their business aviation information and networking. To that end, this year's meeting was originally scheduled in Lyons, France during March but later postponed to coincide with the day before EBACE opened in order to capitalize on the European community's travel budgets that could cover EBACE but perhaps not a second event.
At this year's meeting, EBAA president and CEO Brian Humphries opened the session and pointed to stabilizing traffic in Europe following severe downturns in the fall and winter. Darren Hall, vice president for marketing at Fargo Jet Center in North Dakota and vice chairman of the NBAA Schedulers & Dispatchers Committee, told attendees how the Schedulers and Dispatchers annual meetings got off the ground in the United States and what the meetings accomplish. Erica Dumas, director of Aeroport Lyon-Bron talked about what airports can do for business aviation development.
Alison Chambers of Emerald Media and Stephane Guibaud of Embraer headed up a discussion on public and media relations that addressed crisis management and such practical matters as how to set up a press conference. Says Slabbaert, "It is easy to spread the good news but tough to bring the bad news."
Next Slabbaert hopes to set up regional meetings in Europe and aim for another "BA-Meetup" in Lyons on a date to be determined in March 2010. "All I can say right now is that [BA-Meetup] will definitely become an annual must-attend meeting," Slabbaert says.
Photo credit: Bombardier
