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Dear Mooniacs at EMPOA!

A truly crazy year almost comes to an end. Not only from an aeronautical point of view, but also regarding our society as a whole.

The Chinese « year of the rat » has brought down several things that we have taken for granted. The so-called COVID-19 pandemic did not only limit personal encounters between friends or families and the much-beloved possibility to travel freely, at certain times they were and are prohibited altogether. As you read this and prepare for Christmas most of Europe is in a sort of hibernation and our Mooneys take to the skies less often than before and very rarely to distant destinations.

Therefore it is even more pleasing that we are nevertheless able to look back to some moments of private happiness that were possible due to the commitment of our members. Ingo and Kai, the guys and founders of « Pilotenlounge » at Hassfurt-Schweinfurt EDQT did not let themselves be put off by the first cancellation of their planned event and organized a fabulous Fly-In at their hangar. More than 20 visiting speedmachines, an inspiring newspaper article and lots of joy and gratitude were the prize for their perseverance in early summer. We would like to wish Pilotenlounge and their novel approach of supporting pilot-owner-maintenance lots of success and look forward to a second invitation to beautiful Franconia in the future.

As we had beautiful weather this summer many of us did experience several nice flights and cross-border travels. Unfortunately the new restrictions from end of August led to quite a few cancellations for our Mooney trip to Aurillac and Auch. And this led also to considerably less participants at our Annual General Assembly in the French Southwest. Nevertheless we were still able to welcome almost 20 members which was quite a success in view of the COVID situation and some challenging weather. After Lorenzo Cavalli had laid down his job as vice-president after one year of duty we were able to allure Jerôme Faul from Paris as his immediate successor. We would like to thank Lorenzo for his collaboration and wish Jerôme all the best with his new office. Both have already announced that in 2021 they would like to make up for their planned Quiberon Fly-In that had to be cancelled this year.

An important change will be affecting all those EMPOA Mooniacs that take part at the fleet insurance contract. After many years of stable premiums we are not only facing an increase of those premiums by the insurance company AXA but also a change of the mentoring insurance broker. This led the presidency to a full-scale market search in order to find alternative offers. The issue was discussed in great detail at the AGM and the members empowered the board to enter final negotiations with a new mentoring broker: AdVertum from Stuttgart. Its owner Joerg Hofmann is a Mooniac himself and EMPOA member for many years. We wish for personalized care and customer-focused handling of our concerns by Joerg’s team. Since AdVertum will take care of the official EMPOA fleet-insurance in the future, every Mooniac taking or wishing to take part in the fleet-insurance, has to sign an individual brokerage contract with AdVertum. Since we still have to work on some contractual details and data protection guidelines are also pretty strict, it might still take some time before we can present you with the respective documents. But we can already assure you today that our fleet-insurance will continue to be a very good offer and ask every one of you to support the change and make the switch to AdVertum. Although every Mooniac is and will remain an individual contracting partner, we can only be strong together !

We are already making plans for 2021 : several Fly-Ins are on the horizon and our Annual General Meeting is planned at the airport of Paderborn EDLP where two interesting and lively exhibits around aviation will set the matching stage. Look forward to some nice surprises ! Our sincere « Thank you » goes out to all those of you who keep our club flying by getting involved and organising next year’s Fly-Ins and events.

Positive news did reach us late summer from the US : our much-beloved Texan airplane manufacturer did find a new owner and has been spared the bankruptcy that some already feared. A team of pilots and engineers has identified the spare parts supply for our fleet as their number one priority. A second step will lead them to more ambitious projects like a new flight deck for our aircraft. New designs for airplanes are however not on the list for now.

I wish all of us happy landings as soon as possible – fly fast and Merry Christmas !