Flying In First Class? How Adorable.

October 12, 2016 in Daily Bulletin

Miquel Ros wrote about the market for personalized luxury jumbo jets:

  • Airbus and Boeing have special departments that focus on selling personalized versions of their commercial jets to the world’s elites and super-rich.
  • There are 300 of them around the world. Many of them are like the United States’ Air Force One, used to ferry around world leaders.
  • While the market is small, it is profitable. You don’t have to offer bulk order discounts to individual buyers.
  • Buyers of airplanes typically focus on factors such as fuel economy. This is not a concern for the ultra-wealthy who prefer, instead, to focus on speed and range – to ensure that they can get to their destination quickly, and without making unnecessary stops.
  • The planes cost hundreds of millions of dollars and often the cost of customizing the interior of the plane is more than the cost of the plane itself.
  • Only a handful of companies have the skillset necessary to ensure that the inside of an airplane looks like decadent luxury – but still meets all safety requirements.
  • The rich like their gold, and the typical private jumbo jet has 300 kilograms of it in fittings and decorations.
  • The jets might also be customized to include things like special on-board garages for luxury cars.
  • You don’t want to be too ostentatious though. After all, you have to consider re-sell value, and the next owner will want their own customized interior.
  • The one private jet you can’t get is a personalized version of the double decker A380. Airbus is too busy meeting airline demands for the jet to work on one off customized versions.

Read more and see incredible photos on CNN