Our colleague, Kimberly Williamson of Aviall, was at the recent NBAA show in Orlando. She filed this report for us with her observations of the 2009 edition of the show:
“The National Business Aviation Association’s (NBAA) 62nd Annual Meeting & Convention took place 20-22 October 2009 in Orlando, Florida. According to Aviation Week, this year’s convention showed signs of the industry’s distress, with attendance dropping to the second lowest level in 15 years and some key exhibitors missing from the convention floor. Approximately 23,000 attendees were at this year’s show as opposed to 31,000 at last year’s convention.”
From what Kim and one other source told me, traffic was down, as it is with all shows. She did go on to report:
“Aviall’s positioning was much better this year and yielded a substantial increase in booth traffic despite the low attendance. Everyone of our staff agreed that the location in the center of the show-floor on one of the main aisles was more important than being next to BBJ and/or Jeppesen.”
As for the quality of traffic, Kim continued:
“There is no doubt that attendance was down this year over previous years (with the exception of the post 9/11 convention). 
It is hard to pinpoint if attendance was the result of the global economy, massive job layoffs, or because a few of the major exhibitors (OEMs) were only out at the flight-line (static display) and not in the convention center. Although attendance was significantly lighter, we still conducted several productive supplier and customer meetings.”
Thanks, Kim, for your report.
TTSG
