Private Jet Safety Vs. Commercial Jet Service

We were quite surprised to read the following Wall Street Journal article, 10/24/12, regarding private jet aircraft safety versus commercial jet service. - Randy Lynch

SANTIAGO, Chile—The number of accidents involving business jets and turboprops world-wide is more than five times that of commercial jets this year, highlighting the challenges facing accident-prevention experts in improving safety for private and charter aviation.

Through nearly 10 months of 2012, more than 140 people have died in crashes in eight business jets and 13 commercially operated propeller aircraft, or turboprops, says the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit group.

Only four accidents involving major passenger jets have been recorded world-wide, a record low rate of one crash per roughly 10 million flights over the period (there were 14 such jet crashes last year). Still, those crashes, which each involved more passengers, killed more than 320 people.

The data, presented at a global aviation-safety conference in Santiago, Chile, this week mark "the first year since I've been doing this presentation there were more business jet accidents than world-wide [passenger] jet accidents," said Jim Burin, the foundation's director of technical programs. The foundation has been compiling the report for 13 years.

Safety experts say the data mean more effort should be shifted to upgrading training, maintenance and government oversight at the lower end of commercial aviation in order to improve the segment's safety. Those efforts are particularly needed in the developing world, where airports are less advanced and air-traffic control systems are less reliable, experts said.

The ICAO, a United Nations body responsible for overseeing aviation safety, places more emphasis on regularly scheduled jets than smaller flights, said Nancy Graham, a senior official of the International Civil Aviation Organization.

"Perhaps we need to adjust our focus," she said.

Apart from the sheer number of accidents, safety experts increasingly say turboprops, which carry fewer passengers and weigh a fraction of Airbus or Boeing jets, support the vast majority of business activity in parts of the developing world, raising the probability an accident will involve a smaller plane.

Propeller-powered planes often transport employees and material for mining firms, oil drilling operations and other natural-resource companies to remote regions. Traditionally, such flights have been conducted under less local and international scrutiny that those of bigger passenger jets

Critics say extra attention to turboprops is long overdue.

Compared with jet fleets, "those planes typically have less experienced pilots, their flight simulators are not as advanced and they don't have the same level of automation" or onboard safety protections, according to Dai Whittingham, chief executive of the UK Flight Safety Committee, which helps airlines, pilots and government agencies share safety information.

With crash rates for passenger jets improving dramatically, "the average person automatically assumes the other parts of aviation are equally safe," according to Kevin Hiatt, chief operating officer of the safety committee. But the rise in smaller-plane crashes "sort of crept up on us," he said.

So now the foundation and its supporters "will look deeper into the issue to identify trends and relevant factors."

The active fleet of business jets and turboprops together basically equals the roughly 20,000 Western-built jets currently in service worldwide, according to the foundation's updated analysis. Between 2007 and 2011, on average there were nearly 16 passenger jet crashes annually.

With only four jet accidents through this week and slightly more than two months until the end of the year, Mr. Burin said 2012 appears headed to set a new safety standard for jetliners.

Credit Cards Rush to Burma

Below is an excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article featuring yet another step in Burma's development.

Myanmar inched closer to rejoining the global financial system Thursday as MasterCard Inc. said it had issued a license to one of the country's target banks.  

For a country that has no credit cards and only introduced ATMs less than a year ago, the introduction of the ubiquitous financial brand is a milestone. By giving travelers the ability to withdraw money at cash points and allowing merchants to accept credit cards issued by foreign banks, it will potentially save business people and tourists from having to carry thousands of dollars in local currency on trips to the country, as many do now.

 For financial firms, infrastructure concerns remain, particularly around the availability of a reliable flow of electricity, which is crucial for running ATMs and point-of-sale terminals. 

Mainland Chinese Spending Less in Hong Kong

Here is an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal's 5/30/12 issue regarding the slowing China economy and its effect on Hong Kong.

Randy Lynch, Kipling & Clark

The Wall Street Journal

 A Hong Kong Craze Cools
By Te-Ping Chen & Jason Chow

The flood of mainland Chinese shoppers coming to Hong Kong to snap up luxury goods, expensive homes, art and wine is slowing.

Earlier this month, the usual flocks of mainland tourists that fill the city during Golden Week, a Chinese holiday period, were conspicuously smaller.  Likewise, interest in local art auctions and real estate among mainland consumers flagged in the latest quarter.

In recent years, the number of mainland tourists crossing the border to shop and see sights in Hong Kong has ballooned to more than 23 million a year- quadruple the city's population.  They have given rise to blocks of glittering storefronts filled with luxury retailers eager to cater to such visitors.

Shifting economic winds are affecting the trend, though.  Growth on the mainland is easing, credit is getting tighter and more people are worried about the global economy.  Some Chinese tourists, meanwhile, are simply going elsewhere.

Still, it can be a painful shift.  Last week Tiffany & Co., citing softening growth in China, among other factors, said its net sales would grow 7% to 8% this year, down from a previously expected 10%.  The jewelry retailer, which has 19 stores in mainland China and 10 in Hong Kong, said same-store Asian-Pacific sales rose 10% in the year's first three months, compared with 26% during the same period last year.

Overall growth in visits from mainland tourists to Hong Kong has been "decelerating quite sharply" in recent months, says Credit Suisse analyst Gabriel Chan.  The number of Hong Kong-bound mainland Chinese visitors in the first quarter rose 17% from a year earlier, USB says.

It isn't all a reflection of the economy.  Nine years after mainland China first began granting individual visas for mainland Chinese to visit the city, Hong Kong is no longer such an exotic destination.  "Instead of going to Hong Kong to shop four times a year, why not save money and go to Korea or Japan once?" Mr. Chan says.

In Hong Kong's turbocharged real-estate market, where Chinese have increasingly bought up the most expensive properties, their share of sales of new offerings fell to 37% of the market in the first quarter from 38% in last year's fourth quarter, according to Midland Holdings, a real-estate agency.  For sales of previously owned homes, 8.4% of the total in dollar terms were purchases by Chinese mainland buyers, falling from 15.6%.