It has now been six months since we released the results of our 2004 FBO Survey, which attracted a record number of entries and in so doing, helped us to produce our most accurate result to date.

Northern Executive Aviation at Manchester were victorious last year and no doubt, they have

since been working tirelessly to maintain their position at the top of our FBO tree.

However TAG’s staff at Farnborough, who came in second with good results in the customer service and aircraft operations sections, will equally be trying to go that extra mile to win the 2005 survey.

Half a year is a long time in business aviation and who would have guessed that TAG staff at Tempelhof, third-placed in February, would now be fighting to keep their airport from being closed at the end of October?

Hopefully they will still be in existence to count themselves among the chasing pack of FBOs, which includes well-known names such as Signature at Luton, UAS at Torrejon, Harrods at Stansted and Rotterdam Jet Centre in Holland.

Last year, UK-based FBOs fared very well with five facilities making the top 20. France and Switzerland each provided four of these top places, among them Euralair at Le Bourget and Transairco at Geneva.

This year, as with last, we are increasing the availability of survey forms by providing each of

our readers with a personalised web page on which to enter their votes and also by providing FBO feedback forms with each issue of the magazine up until the end of the year.

It is up to you how you enter but please take the time to give us your feedback on the standard of FBOs you’ve visited this year. The more of you who send us your judgements, the more accurate our result will be.

It is also an excellent way of holding a mirror up to Europe’s FBOs and showing them where they are doing things right and where their performance is simply not up to standard.

You will find details of your personalised web page and a copy of the FBO Survey form printed on the reverse side of your carrier sheet – which comes with each issue of the magazine – so be sure not to discard it in haste.

On a personal note, I have decided to hang up my EBAN boots after five extremely enjoyable years at the company and am taking up a new challenge in health writing.

During my time here, I have very much benefited from the fact that the business aviation industry in Europe is a tight-knit, friendly community, often on-hand to help out a neighbour or journalist in need.

I have probably bugged some of you a little beyond your comfort zones, calling you for interviews

at most inopportune moments of the day, but I can honestly say, without exception, that you’ve always extended me the sort of courtesies that are necessary to keep the magazine abreast of the latest industry news and developments.

Managing editor David Wright will reassume the editor’s duties while reporter Martin Moore will be his reliable right hand man on the news desk and at conferences and conventions.

Which just leaves me a few lines to thank you for all the interviews and debriefs, for your words of encouragement and indeed criticism, and of course for the press lunches and demonstration flights.

They say there’s no such thing as a free lunch but I can now, quite openly, beg to differ.

Richard Evans, EBAN editor, richard.evans@ebanmagazine.com