If
you have money and want to flaunt it, mansions, limousines and yachts are no
longer enough. For the super rich of Asia, owning a private jet has become the
ultimate status symbol.
Executive-jet makers aiming to woo Asia's
growing ranks of billionaires and multi-millionaires were out in force at the
Singapore Airshow, which drew to a close over the weekend.
Brazil's Embraer had Jackie Chan's personal
Legacy 650 jet -- with a unique white, red and yellow livery inspired by a
mythical Chinese dragon -- flown to Singapore for the trade fair.
The Hong Kong-born martial arts movie star,
who has a massive following in China, was appointed this month as the company's
first ever brand ambassador.
Chan's 13-seat plane, which has a list price
of $31.5 million, was one of several executive aircraft put on display by
exhibitors including Canada's Bombardier and US-based Gulfstream Aerospace
Corp.
"Asia-Pacific, as you all know, is a
market that is growing very, very nicely," Embraer president Ernest
Edwards, whose company also makes commercial planes, said at the airshow.
Asia now has the world's second largest
concentration of millionaires after the United States, with China and India
producing them at a dizzying rate, according to a study by Merrill Lynch Global
Wealth Management and Capgemini.
Jet makers are catering to the so-called
"ultra high net worth" individuals and families with investable
assets of at least $30 million.
Their number rose to 23,000 in Asia in 2010,
the report said, while US business magazine Forbes estimates that China alone
has close to 150 billionaires.
An entry-level Phenom 100 from Embraer starts
at $4.055 million -- a trifling sum, relatively speaking, for the target
customer.
Embraer expects that $40-$48 billion worth of
executive jets will be sold in Asia in the next 10 years -- half of them in
China.
The company delivered its first executive jet
in Asia to an unidentified customer in 2004 and now has 40 of them in operation
in the region.
Not to be outdone, Gulfstream has opened a
sales office in Beijing and set up a joint venture to operate a business jet
service centre in the Chinese capital's international airport.
It will thus be the first private jet company
to offer maintenance, repair and overhaul services for its customers in China,
said Mark Burns, president of Gulfstream Product Support.
"In the long run, we see this expansion
of our service capability as essential to maintaining our number one position
in the Chinese market in terms of market share and reputation," he said.
Gulfstream said almost half of its orders in
the third quarter of 2011 came from the Asia-Pacific region, and more than 40
of its planes are now being used in China.
Most recently, Gulfstream received a firm
order for 20 jets from China's Minsheng Leasing firm in October last year.
Jostling for a piece of the Chinese pie is
Hong Kong-based Sino Jet, a specialist business aviation firm started in May
last year by Chinese businesswoman Jenny Lau, a former private banker.
Lau's company, hired by superstar Chan to take
care of his jet, offers a variety of services to its clients ranging from plane
maintenance and sourcing of air crew to flight scheduling and inflight meals.
"I do believe this is a booming industry
in China. With cultural advantage and language advantage, I have the absolute
advantages of starting this business," Lau told AFP.
AFP
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