NBAA Reaches Milestone 10,000 Members

For the first time in the organisation’s history, the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) announced last week that its membership has now reached 10,000 registered members.

The 10,000th member is named as TCB Air LLC from Kalamazoo, Michigan.

The NBAA was founded in 1947 by a small group of the Wings Club who met in a New York hotel in 1946.  They realised the critical need for some organization within Business Aviation in the area of air space management and air traffic control.

Founding member, Mr Palmer J Lathrop or Bud to his flying associates, stressed the importance of the promotion and protection of the interest of business aircraft operators and led the way in an informal meeting of 13 aviators on May 17 1946.

Mr Lathrop wrote to the Presidents of a number of aviation companies and invited them to take representation at a further meeting to continue the important discussions.

A total of sixteen companies were eventually represented at the meeting on 21st November 1946 and led to the formation of the Corporation Aircraft Owners Association which was later to become the NBAA in 1953 following the Korean War, but the first A stood as Aircraft until 1997 upon its 50th anniversary, when the final decision was made to settle upon the National Business Aviation Association that it is today.