A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Senior Editor

Curt Epstein

Bombardier and Rolls-Royce announced a new engine service agreement yesterday granting the airframer’s service centers in Amsterdam and Singapore authority to perform maintenance on the BR710 engines installed on the long range Global Express, Global XRS, 5000 and 6000 twinjets. 
They are the fifth and sixth company-owned service centers to receive such authorization and are certified to perform line maintenance and engine removal. 
“Rolls-Royce is very, very pleased with the success of the Global Express,” said Andrew Robinson, the engine maker’s senior vice president for customer services, civil small and medium engines at a presentation yesterday. “It is a very important program for us.” 
In March 2012, the two companies signed a similar agreement authorizing the U.S. Bombardier service centers in Dallas, Tucson, Hartford and Fort Lauderdale to service the BR710. 
“Expanding support capabilities across our network is one of our top priorities,” said Stan Younger, Bombardier’s vice president for aircraft service centers. “Our goal is to provide operators with the ability to receive maintenance whenever and wherever they need it.” 
Over the past two years, Bombardier has increased its global customer support staff by 20 percent to 220 people, and now has 14 regional support offices, and 10 parts facilities worldwide. In the past four months, the OEM’s Frankfurt distribution hub has seen a 60-percent increase in parts shipping during the first third of the year over the same period in 2013, said Michel Ouellette, Bombardier’s recently named president of customer services and specialized and amphibious aircraft, indicating a higher available inventory closer to where its customers are located. 
The Canadian company also announced that it plans to establish a permanent presence at France’s Nice Cote d’ Azur Airport to support onsite AOG and return-to-service capabilities. “As we started looking at the numbers of aircraft that are landing within the French Riviera, at Monaco, at the Nice airport and Cannes and that region, they just stand out to you and beg for us to be there to help our customers,” said Younger. Services provided there will be an extension of the company’s Part 145 authorized Amsterdam center. While the company will not yet be building a new facility at Nice, and Younger said he doesn’t see heavy maintenance being offered there in the near future, the option is open for the company to build a new maintenance center there.

Two More Bombardier Centers Get Rolls-Royce Approval

Rolls-Royce authorizes two more Bombardier service Centers to work on the BR710 engines which power the company’s Global series.

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