Review of Aircraft Finance & Commercial Aviation 2010 that took place in March 2010

Highlights at this year's Number One Aircraft Finance Conference Included:

Bertrand Piccard, in his last public speaking engagement prior to the inaugural test flight of Solar Impulse, energised the audience with his commitment to renewable energy and the drivers behind setting up this ambitious project, from ideas via funding to execution.
Will Whitehorn, President of Virgin Galactic, continued the space tourism story where Mike Melville and Burt Rutan left off with an engaging presentation culminating in footage of the first successful “captive carry” test flight by VSS Enterprise which took place during the previous week.

Gordon Bethune, former CEO of Continental Airlines gave his perspective on the formula for survival and recovery for airlines during the most recent industry crisis in characteristically unbashed style.

Wednesday’s high level panel discussion between Airline CFOs and Financiers who debated solutions to the liquidity issues in the lending market, giving the audience a unique perspective.
The Geneva Forum annual interactive audience polling session proved yet again to be the only real-time barometer of sentiment across the industry.
Leading industry analysts Brian Pearce (IATA), Adam Pilarski (Avitas) and Julian Lee (Centre For Global Energy Studies), gave their prognoses for aircraft finance and fuel prices respectively, while leading Economist Douglas McWilliams (Centre For Economics & Business Research) presented his predictions for global economic recovery.