Month: May 2015

Is Frequent Flying Bad for Your Health?

Businessman in airportTraveling the world, visiting an exciting new location every day, seeing the world from 40,000 feet about the ground … sounds like a dream, right? But pilots and flight crews face risks that other occupations often do not.

Numerous studies have linked health conditions to frequent flying. From increased exposure to UV rays and cosmic radiation to deteriorating eyesight, those who fly often must take extra measures to protect themselves from health risks. If you are a pilot, on a flight crew, or fly very frequently, you could be at risk for any of these conditions.

Skin Cancer — Airplane windshields are made of polycarbonate plastic or multi-layer composite glass and do not completely block UV-A or UB-B ultraviolet radiation. Thus, airline pilots have a higher risk of skin cancer — as high as twice the risk for melanoma in the general population. Consider this fact: Flying for just an hour at 30,000 feet is equivalent to 20 minutes on a tanning bed. In addition, UV exposure levels could be higher when pilots are flying over thick clouds and snow due to the reflection. Cosmic radiation exposure is also a significant concern because women who pilot and crew aircraft are 30% more likely to develop breast cancer.

What can pilots and flight attendants do? Wear sunscreen every time you fly and reapply it often. Also be sure to get regular wellness exams.

Deteriorating Vision — Good eyesight is essential for pilots operating aircraft. While natural aging brings gradual changes in the structure of a person’s eyes and to their quality of vision, those changes appear to happen more rapidly for frequent flyers. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health retrospectively examined the visual performance of over 3,000 regional and air-taxi pilots as recorded in their aeromedical certification records filed with the FAA. According to the study, 419 of the 3,019 pilots had serious vision problems, including corneal problems, glaucoma, and cataracts.

What can pilots do? Keep up with regular eye exams because early detection is the key to controlling the decline in your vision. Wear protective eye wear whenever outside and consume plenty of carotene-rich foods like carrots.

Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) — In recent years, DVT has received increased coverage partly due to some high-profile deaths of airline passengers. It turns out that the risk is also quite high for pilots, whereas flight attendants, who move about the cabin quite a lot, are not at as high a risk. Dubbed ‘economy class syndrome’ for its potential effects on air travelers forced into cramped spaces with limited mobility, DVT is just as deadly for pilots who cannot move about a cramped cockpit to exercise their lower limbs and reduce the risk of blood clots in the legs.

What can pilots do? Get regular workouts and keep your weight in check. Stand when you can and stretch and wriggle your legs and feet when you can’t. Movement is the key to preventing DVT.

Being proactive about health both on and off an aircraft can counteract the negative health risks caused by frequent flying.

Contact L & L International if you need assistance in purchasing or selling a private jet. 
You can reach our sales specialists today at sales@L-Lint.com, call us any time at +1.305.754.3313, or visit us online.

Upcycling Gives New Life to Old Airline Interior Fixtures

Reduce, Reuse, and RecycleWhat happens when you decide that it’s time to update the interior of your private jet? Specifically, what happens with the materials leftover from your old seats and fixtures?

This is a question commercial airlines are asking themselves as they renovate their aircraft. Many of these companies have begun donating materials that would have been discarded to organizations that can put them to good use. In a dramatic move towards upcycling (or turning waste materials into new products to minimize environmental effects), aircraft materials are being given a second life through innovation and creativity.

Here are a few of our favorite examples:

Working with Russell Brands, an American manufacturer of sports equipment, Boeing is helping to create protective athletic gear out of carbon fiber left over from production of the B787 Dreamliner. The aerospace-grade carbon fiber is very thin and offers extremely high strength for its weight. It provides improved durability over average materials, turning old junk into shoulder pads to protect college football players.

After redesigning 450 aircraft in their B737 fleet, Southwest Airlines found a truly creative way to reuse their leftover leather seat covers — all 80,000 of them! With 32 football fields’ worth of leather, the executives of Southwest looked around and decided to team up with several groups. Among them was Alive & Kicking Kenya, a training program for young adults that has already used the repurposed leather to create over 1,000 soccer balls. They also turned over some of the leather to Life Beads Kenya, a training program for women and people with disabilities to make bags and wallets. Southwest gave more leather to Looptworks, a Portland, Oregon-based upcycler that makes stylish duffel and tote bags and other items from the recycled materials.

The Supersized Salvage television show worked alongside Arizona’s AvAir and Sycamore Aviation to complete a big upcycling project and raise money for a children’s cancer charity. They upcycled every piece of a plane, including the external shell and the interior fixtures, into new, sellable items. Some of the items created were chairs and sofas made from the curved edge of the plane’s wings, children’s toy boxes repurposed from overhead lockers, and nesting boxes for birds that were fashioned out of air ducts. The challenge sold all the pieces for a combined total of £44,000.

A new startup called Stu-Art Aviation Furniture, founded by an airplane engineer, has begun creating unique furniture designs from old airplane parts. Stuart Abbott began making and selling furniture out of his garage about two years ago. His first piece was an office chair crafted from a recycled airline seat, which sold within an hour after being listed online. His designs since have proven to be just as popular.

All of these examples prove that with just a little imagination, leftover aircraft parts can easily be recycled into new products with a life of their own.

Contact L & L International if you need assistance in purchasing or selling a private jet. 
You can reach our sales specialists today at sales@L-Lint.com, call us any time at +1.305.754.3313, or visit us online.

Expatriate Pilots Seek Better Opportunities Overseas

PilotFor American pilots, moving to different countries for their job can mean big opportunity — and an even bigger paycheck.

The 2014 Boeing Pilot and Technician Outlook projected a need for 533,000 new commercial airline pilots worldwide for the next 20 years to meet industry demand. But U.S. flight schools currently produce only a quarter of the commercial airline pilots needed. With increased hours for first-officer qualification and thousands of dollars invested in flight training, only to be met with a meager salary and years of work to put in before there is any chance of a promotion to first captain, it’s not surprising that fewer Americans are inclined to follow this career track.

Greater opportunities abroad

But American pilots willing to move to different countries can now garner big pay increases and greater opportunities. In China, an Airbus A319 or A302 captain can earn a starting pay of $290,000 (with bonuses and allowances) compared the $110,000 or so they can make in the U.S.

Opportunities for quick advancement are also more abundant overseas., In Vietnam, a first captain can graduate to the role of captain in as little as one to two years. Other Asia-Pacific countries, such as China, South Korea, Japan, and India, are experiencing some of the highest demand for expat pilots because only a small portion of their own population has the skill or training to fill the role. This trend is a common one worldwide: Africa needs 725 new pilots every year and Russia, 525.

It’s not all roses and dollars, however. American pilots who take international jobs have other difficulties to contend with; specifically, the IRS tax rules that require individuals to record how much money they have earned in every jurisdiction. The U.S. government does not count money earned in international waters as foreign income, but U.S. pilots still pay federal income tax for the amount they earn in national waters. Lack of clarity leads some accountants to say that ‘international waters’ begins three miles off the coast while others say 200 miles offshore. Meanwhile, pilots are expected to keep track of every entry and exit to ensure accuracy — a similar requirement of anyone who works on a cruise ship, in the merchant marine, or coast guard, in fact.

Still, the obstacles aren’t holding many pilots back. American pilots are still relocating in droves to accept high-paying positions in foreign territories and letting their accountants figure out the math.

Contact L & L International if you need assistance in purchasing or selling a private jet. 
You can reach our sales specialists today at sales@L-Lint.com, call us any time at +1.305.754.3313, or visit us online.

Bizav Recovery Projected in China for 2017

Stairs on passenger planeThings are starting to look up for business aviation in China as industry analysts expect an increase in business in 2015.

Having only recently been introduced to Chinese markets, business aircraft sales have already been a roller-coaster ride as economic and political factors wreak havoc on the industry’s stability. A peak in 2009 with robust sales of large-cabin jets lead to a recent trough, which combined with the country’s slowing economy and austerity measures to slow orders of business jets of all sizes. Now, things are starting to look up for business aviation in China.

Many of China’s wealthy buyers have had strong reasons to keep a low profile in the past, while their government pursued corrupt officials as part of an anti-luxury movement. Despite the increase in wealth in the country — with the number of billionaires in China projected to increase to over 1,000 in 2017 — buyers were quick to back down from their intended purchases of aircraft when they became a symbol of excessive wealth.

In 2012 strong optimism prompted expectations for the number of business aircraft in China to grow by 30% between 2011 and 2015. Unfortunately, in 2014, customer orders decreased by half compared to the prior year and expectations were foiled.

But as the number of Chinese business jet order numbers continue to steadily climb in 2015, the industry hopes there will be stronger economic movement. In the past year, the Shanghai Composite Index nearly doubled, reaching a seven-year high.

For the time, Chinese politics have cooled off and the government has begun to encourage companies in China to invest abroad. There is hope that long-range private aircraft will be considered valuable business tools instead of needless luxury items.

There is also a growing presence of international aviation business in China. Textron Aviation’s Cessna Aircraft division recently formed a joint venture with China Aviation Industry General Aircraft Co. — a subsidiary of Aviation Industry Corporation of China — to launch charter and business aviation management services in the country next year. The Wichita-based aircraft innovator, which includes Cessna, Beechcraft, and Hawker aircraft brands, sees China as an emerging market important to future growth.

Experts are watching the recent upturn in the Chinese market as a sign that indicates worldwide business aviation is on the rise once more.

Contact L & L International if you need assistance in purchasing or selling a private jet. 
You can reach our sales specialists today at sales@L-Lint.com, call us any time at +1.305.754.3313, or visit us online.