Thailand’s Ministry for Tourism and Sport is considering building a private jet terminal at Don Muang Airport.

The government has asked Thailand Elite to develop marketing plans for attracting more business jet visitors. Thailand Elite is a membership program with immigration, leisure, and business benefits.

A Thailand Elite spokesperson said:

“The four to five private jet flights per day landing at Phuket Airport and two to three flights at Don Muang Airport would increase by 50 percent when proposed renovations were completed.”

VistaJet recently acquired Bombardier Skyjet International for an undisclosed sum, and is now the second largest business jet company outside North America. VistaJet plans to keep the Skyjet brand name.

According to VistaJet’s web site:

“The Skyjet transaction and current aircraft order will see VistaJet’s fleet expand to 94 jets by 2012. The Company recently forecast a 50 per cent increase in revenues for this year and expects to generate approximately 80,000 flight hours by 2012.”

VistaJet has also taken delivery of two big business jets, a Challenger 300 (its first) and a Challenger 605 (its second), from Bombardier.

Stanford Transportation Group recently concluded an analysis of U.S. airline and business aircraft passengers. Their research points to an increase in business aviation travel while airline travel stagnated; in fact, business aircraft now account for 41% of the number of passenger trips as those made by airline first-class, business-class and full-fare coach passengers combined.

STG Managing Director Gerald Bernstein said:

“As a group, the number of premium trips has fallen from 20% of overall airline travel prior to 9/11, to less than 10% of airline travel…Despite the rise in total airline passenger trips through 2007, the number of premium trips has stalled at 41 million…There are approximately 16 million one-way trips taken annually on business jets and turboprops. In 2007, the number of trips using these aircraft was 41% the number of trips made by Premium airline passengers. This is clearly a vastly different competitive landscape than existed even eight years ago when business aviation travel account for only 16% the number of Premium airline trips.”

Marcel van Leeuwen of Aviation News has more details about the BBJ 3, which is due to be delivered to the unnamed customer in 2009.

According to the site:

“The BBJ 3 has 1,120 square feet (104 square meters) of floor space, and provides 35 percent more interior space and 89 percent more luggage space than the BBJ 2. The BBJ 3’s range is between 5,435 nmi (10,066 km) and 4,725 nmi (8,751 km) depending on the number of passengers flown.”

DeCrane Aircraft, in Delaware, will be outfitting the BBJ 3 with a long-range auxiliary fuel system and heads-up display. Since the fuel system is new, it will need to be certified.
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I hear that Boeing has finished work on the first BBJ 3, which is based on a Next-Generation 737-900 extended range aircraft. The BBJ 3 will now have a long-range auxiliary fuel system and head-up display installed before heading off to completion.

Businessmen who fly to oilfields and other remote areas are being targeted as customers for a new Russian-Ukrainian business aircraft. The makers of the Antonov Business Jet claim its durability will make oil firms one of many groups looking to buy the plane.

The Antonov Business Jet’s being promoted at the Domodedovo Airshow this week.

The plane’s marketing agents Ilyushin Finance admit they lack the sales and service network of established rivals like Bombardier and Embraer. That’s why Antonov still have delivery slots available in 2010, when rivals are full to 2013.

But the Antonov has a unique selling point in its high wing clearance, which allows landing on uneven runways, common in oilfields as well as regional airports. The plane also claims to be up 270 times more resistant than competitors to engine absorption of the dirt often found on local runways. Andrey Lebedinetz, Deputy Marketing director of Ilyushin Finance, says the robust nature of the aircraft, plus its cost advantage, will make it competitive in any environment where local conditions are less than perfect.

This aircraft is for harsh environment, Africa, Latin America, the east of Russia. It will cost between $30 and $35mln. Compared to Embraer and Bombardier the advantage is 10-15% in terms of price.

Vasily Pasetchnik, Vice President of Net Jets Europe, the world’s largest private plane operator, hopes Antonov have learnt from the traditional Soviet aircraft flaw.

Of course it’s comfort, it’s the levels of comfort, and I trust that the aircraft makers have invested their time and thinking into that.

The head of Russia’s Business Aviation lobby Maksim Fedotov admits he’d rather have this Canadian Challenger than a domestic jet. But on a Siberian gas field at minus 50 degrees celsius, he says, only a Russian plane can be trusted to start and take off. 

 This article appeared in Russia Today

An article by Rhys Blakely of the Times recounts stories of luxury aircraft (at least 10 so far) impounded by Indian customs officers for failure to pay import duties.

The seized airplanes include an Airbus A-319 purchased by Mukesh Ambani (Reliance Industries, India’s largest private company) for his wife as a birthday gift. Mr. Abmani’s “archenemy”, Anil Ambani (they are brothers), also had an aircraft, a Global 5000 Bombardier, seized.

The article goes on to say:

“A source at one of the affected companies said: “They have declared war: officials say anyone who has bought an aircraft is fair game.”

Speculation abounds that a clamp-down on the ultra-rich may have political rewards in Delhi, where, in the run-up to elections, India’s Government is being attacked for failing to ensure that the poor benefit from the country’s economic boom.”

For some brighter tax news, we look to the Russian government, which recently eliminated a punitive import tax on private aircraft. An article on AVWeb (free registration required) by Russ Niles states:

“The tax had driven many Russian business people to register their aircraft outside the country but that’s expected to change and also boost sales. Russia is seen as major market for business aircraft because of the lack of convenient transportation to its resource-rich hinterlands.”

The government of British Columbia, Canada, recently imposed a controversial carbon tax on all fuels, including jet fuel. According to AVWeb, (free registration required) the tax raises Jet A fuel up 2.61 cents per liter (10.15 cents a U.S. gallon), and 100 LL up 2.46 cents a liter (9.56 cents a U.S. gallon). The article also states the rates are calculated based on $10/metric ton (CAD) of carbon produced, and vary based on each fuel’s carbon emissions.

Okay, so for the a BIG business jet blog, profiling the eight passenger entry level Gulfstream G150 is admittedly a stretch. That being said, it’s a very impressive (and comfortable) aircraft, and the folks at Gulfstream were very accommodating to us and our cameras.

Some useful tidbits we gleaned: The G150 can cruise at mach .82, while long range cruise is .75. It generally consumes 2,000 pounds of fuel the first hour but can get down to as low as 1,500 after that. The lav has a standard Boeing fitting so just about any airport in the world can service it. Thanks to the lav sitting forward (and fuel being in the aft,) you can service the plane very quickly.