Word: microjet
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Fans of what are known officially as very light jets - sometimes called microjets or "minivans with wings" - predict that this new class of aircraft will democratize private air travel on the Continent much as low-cost carriers opened up commercial aviation to the masses. Microjets start at $1.5 million, a fraction of the $8 million price tag of the cheapest business jets currently on the market. Thanks to their more efficient fuel use, very light jets will also cost some 50% less to fly, allowing air-taxi and corporate shuttle services to sell a seat on one for about...
...planes take flight, Eurocontrol, Europe's air-traffic control agency, has raised concerns over their introduction to already congested airspace. The agency predicts that 100 new microjets will take to Europe's skies each year for the next decade, each of them flying an average of three flights a day. Very light jets cruise at the same altitudes as large commercial craft, but at slower speeds. Under legislation written before such small jets were conceived, they are not required to carry the same collision-avoidance systems as larger jets. Alex Hendriks, Eurocontrol's deputy director of air-traffic management, compares...
...November, Eurocontrol negotiated what Hendriks calls a "gentleman's agreement" with Blink, Jet Bird and other microjet operators that they would not fly above 28,000 ft. (8,500 m), the minimum cruising altitude of commercial jets. But that agreement collapsed in April after the operators claimed that flying at lower altitudes would burn too much fuel, making it tough to operate profitably. In October, Eurocontrol will conduct a simulation in Budapest that will flood air-traffic control with hundreds of microjets. If the test suggests that the safety of larger planes could be compromised, Eurocontrol may push regulators...
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