Gulfstream Aerospace is to combine with Executive Jet and a group of regional investors to launch the Middle East's first fractional-ownership programme.
Bill Boisture, Gulfstream's president and chief operating officer, says that the investor group also intends to put into place a complementary scheme offering a smaller aircraft to customers in the region.
Initially, the Gulfstream IV-SP will be offered, but the Gulfstream boss declines to elaborate on the smaller aircraft type being considered for the second leg of the scheme.
Observers at the show saw the Raytheon Hawker 800 XP - which Executive Jets already has in service in its US NetJets programme - as a likely candidate. It is possible, however, that Cessna Citation 2s falling out of NetJets programmes elsewhere will be used initially.
The situation is clearer on the long-range corporate-jet front, where letters of intent have been signed with the investor group to buy up to 12 aircraft over the next six years. Gulfstream valued the deal at around $400 million, including maintenance.
Gulfstream is to supply two used GIVs by late 1998 to get the scheme up and running, assuming that a final agreement is reached by the participant, and the first GIV-SP is expected to be in service in early 1999. Boisture says that, although the ultra-long-range Gulfstream V will eventually enter the programme, "that's still some time out".
The Savannah, Georgia-based aircraft builder already has a IV-SP fractional-ownership programme in the USA, known as Gulfstream Shares, which, like the Middle East programme, is run in conjunction with Executive Jet.
While Gulfstream expresses confidence in the concept of fractional ownership in the Middle East, Bombardier has opted not to follow its rival's lead, citing the high cost of guaranteeing customers the availability of an aircraft within 6h.
It also believes that customers in the region are more likely to purchase aircraft for their own use than to buy shares.
Source: Flight International
