older aircraft
We have recently noticed more and more brokers asking for the year of manufacture of the aircraft as their client will not travel in an aircraft over a certain age. I find this rather unenlightened, the age of the aircraft has little revelance to safety and reliability. Our Hawkers of 80's vintage enjoy virtually a 100% dispatch reliability. I feel that this ageism has been instigated by NetJets as a marketing ploy and the rest of the industry should fight against it.
To day we were turned down by another operator for a sub charter as our aircraft was too old. When asked why they needed a sub the answer was "We have gone Tech"!!!
Need I say more?