EBACE - Move Or Be Forgotten

The uncomfortable truth is that in the last 5+ years EBACE has lost altitude and this year it has crashed. Not because the industry is shrinking. Not because Europe lacks ambition. If EBACE were a commercial brand, it would have been killed years ago. It has no story, no soul. A brand cannot be built like a policy paper. It should have been re‑launched years ago.

 Based on 2024–2025 reporting and leadership statements, EBAA over-relied on a single event that lost strategic purpose. Suggested reform priorities explicitly included: “Ensure EBACE remains Europe’s premier business aviation event.” This phrasing implied EBACE’s status was no longer secure. It acknowledged that EBACE’s decline threatened EBAA’s legitimacy and finances. EBAA’s leadership itself acknowledged that the association was not aligned with the challenges facing its members.

 A new EBACE entity should be created and leave Brussels. Not because Brussels is wrong, but because Brussels is the unsuitable symbolic, operational, and strategic center for a new EBACE.  It must stop behaving like part of a Brussels‑based policy secretariat and start behaving like a continental aviation summit with gravitational pull. The core truth is that Brussels may be perfect for EBAA, but it is terrible for an EBACE organization that holds its summit elsewhere and functions as a continental convening engine and not as a lobbying office. It must be located where the world wants to gather. A home worthy of its ambition. It is ‘Move Or Be Forgotten’.

 Establish an EBACE Executive Office (EEO) at a new location. Build a team that curates. Give it authority. Give it talent. Give it a mandate. This replaces the Brussels‑centric committee model. No great brand is run by committee. The EBACE Executive Office should be a single executive authority with CEO‑level autonomy. This is a structural fix EBACE has lacked for many years. Mandate full authority over programming, partnerships, investment, and brand.

 The strategic Interpretation of EBAA is that is structured like a policy secretariat; EBAA must prioritize EU regulatory work. Yet, EBAA lacks the internal verticals needed for a mega‑event. Limited marketing and content production. Limited exhibitor acquisition capability.  EBAA cannot scale EBACE without external partners. Any future EBACE transformation must avoid the structural asymmetry of EBAA. 

 EBACE was structurally outsourced and had operational dependencies. Heavy reliance on PALEXPO contractors, external production agencies, OEMs for content gravity and NBAA’s events team. This creates fragility: if one partner pulls back, the event weakens. 

 The withdrawal happened gradually between 2023 and 2024, driven by OEM pullback, declining ROI, and a collapsing value proposition.  OEM withdrawal destroyed the event’s commercial viability. By 2025, NBAA effectively stepped back, leaving EBAA to run EBACE alone. The strategic truth was that NBAA left because the event was no longer salvageable under the existing model. NBAA’s model depends on strong exhibitor economics; EBACE no longer delivered. EBAA wanted a policy‑heavy, advocacy‑driven event.

 Position a new EBACE as a geopolitical instrument. The strategic compass for operators, OEMs, capital, and innovators. Europe’s business aviation future cannot be negotiated in a vacuum. Policy must meet operators. Operators must meet OEMs. OEMs must meet innovators. Innovators must meet capital. It is not just branding or programming. It is not about better marketing either. It is about organizational architecture. The new EBACE structure shall be a movement architecture designed to outperform the past EBACE structurally, not cosmetically.

 The new EBACE should become a permanent hemispheric platform that drives capital, insight, and influence. It must serve as the industry’s flagship, not the face of a lobbying bureaucracy. Its purpose should center on access, intelligence, and a distinctive identity rather than exhibition space. Each year, EBACE should bring together business aviation leaders, investors, and policymakers to shape the future of mobility in Europe. It should be the continent’s strategic forum, where operators, OEMs, regulators, innovators, and investors align around the next five years of flight. 

 EBACE can establish itself as Europe’s leading tool of geopolitical relevance, and the industry’s emotional center of gravity. To use a powerful metaphor, EBACE can be a continental business aviation ‘Situation Room’ disguised as a convention. The place where intelligence, industry signals, capital flows, and future‑mobility trajectories are synthesized into decisions. It brings together operators, OEMs, financiers, and innovators to create a shared operational picture of European aviation.

 Who should do it?

If EBACE is redesigned by industry leaders with real capital at stake, it becomes a continental business aviation engine. If it is redesigned by an association, it will remain a legacy event. The new EBACE concept must be created and driven by a small, high‑authority, cross‑industry Executive Group. The only structure with enough legitimacy, capital alignment, and operational intelligence to implement a new EBACE model is a joint OEM–Operator–Airport/FBO–Capital–Future Mobility Executive Steering Group. 

 It shall not be controlled by EBAA. This may be consistent with a current EBAA transformation context, where the association may be undergoing leadership change.  EBACE’s future depends on aligning product pipelines, fleet strategies, infrastructure investment, none of which EBAA staff can drive. It lacks capital and OEM leverage.

 For the record, I have nothing against Brussels; I am a proud Belgian. Nor do I have anything against Geneva. I lived in Switzerland for seven years and valued the experience. During that time, I lived on the Swiss side of Lake Constance, about 17 km (10 miles) from Friedrichshafen, Germany, home of AERO. I was responsible for business aviation development and promotion for Swiss airports, arranged a booth at EBACE, attended as a participant, and often held a press badge. I experienced EBACE in its peak years and witnessed its decline.