It has been more than a year since China’s Capital Jet (CJet) formed a partnership with U.S.-based FBO chain Million Air to rebrand its facility at Beijing Capital Airport, the lone business aviation services provider there, giving Million Air its first location in the Eastern Hemisphere. In that time, Million Air has worked with the CJet staff to better align the FBO towards traditional FBO industry standards.
In fact, over the past year Million Air has brought two large groups of the Beijing facility’s staff to its U.S. location in California and to its flagship location in Houston, where they learned how a traditional Western FBO functions and trained alongside their U.S. counterparts. “We got them badging in the U.S.” said Million Air CEO Roger Woolsey. “They actually functioned in all the positions, customer service, line service and marshalling.”
Beijing holds a special place in Chinese business aviation according to Woolsey. “It accounts for 50 percent of all [business aviation] movements in China,” he told AIN. “There’s between 35 and 50 corporate jets a day coming into the airport, it’s the busiest airport for corporate aviation and international arrivals.”
That high visibility has led to changes at the facility itself, which has seen interior remodelling, “turning it from a cold terminal where people park and receive fuel into a hospitality center like a real FBO,” Woolsey said. A new addition on the exterior is an arrivals canopy on the landside to protect arriving passengers from the elements.
The Million Air chief is eagerly anticipating further business aviation growth in China’s capital city, with a new, second airfield currently under construction—Daxing International Airport—that is expected to open in 2019, Woolsey said. “We are very excited about that because they are going to give Million Air full control of that FBO,” which, he added, will be the only service provider at what will then be the largest airport in China.
For Million Air, that means an opportunity to participate in the design and build of the new CJet-funded facility from the ground up, and offer standard conveniences in customer service, such as being able to unload aircraft at the FBO and then tow them to their parking spaces. According to Woolsey, the site of the business aircraft facility has already been selected by the airport authority, and construction is expected to begin later this year.