The benefits of private flying supersede the headaches of flying commercially. Direct routes, avoiding crowded airports, and conducting business inflight make business aviation a more viable option … around the world.

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n March an ultra-long-range Gulfstream G550 business jet sets a new city-pair speed record between Salt Lake City and Seoul, South Korea, flying 5,642 nautical miles in 10 hours and 19 minutes. In April a G550 sets another city-pair speed record between Hong Kong and Dubai, flying the route in 8 hours and 29 minutes. In May Gulfstream’s smaller, shorter-range G150 flight-test aircraft sets the new jet’s first city-pair speed record, flying between Geneva and Tel Aviv in 3 hours and 40 minutes.

You might think these are random events, but they’re not. Each record-breaking flight is a sales pitch of sorts, often carrying potential customers on common routes they might fly with the aircraft. “If we have a customer with a typical mission, we find out whether a record exists for flights between those points, and we will fly the aircraft to show that it fits that mission profile,” explains a Gulfstream official. If the company is close to consummating a deal, Gulfstream will take the customers along for the ride. “It’s a way of proving to them that the aircraft is capable of performing to its specifications,” he adds.

More important than setting new records, the city-pairs demonstrate the increasing globalization of the aviation industry. Privately-operated aircraft are now carrying passengers all around the globe, a result of ever more capable aircraft, growing dissatisfaction with commercial air transportation, and a desire by many high-fliers to continue to do business and stay “in contact” while traveling. But shorter hops too are being plyed by business aircraft, and for some of the same reasons.

“The rest of the world is suffering the same complaints as in the United States,” points out Tom Appleton, president and chief executive officer of Piaggio America. “Airports are increasingly congested, the boarding process is difficult, and today many small communities are not particularly well served by airlines,” he explains. “It is much better to get two or three from a company together on a private aircraft . . . and the price of the operation is very similar to the commercial airfare.”

Overall, the “business” of business aviation is booming, and not just in the United States, which has been the industry’s mainstay, but increasingly around the world. Burgeoning economies are creating growing demand for both short- and long-haul business aircraft throughout Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia/Pacific.

Last year overall shipments of business jets rose 27 percent to 750 units, just 34 below the record set in 2001, according to the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA). Worldwide shipments, including piston-engine, turboprop, and jet aircraft, rose 21 percent to 3,580 units, making 2005 the best in 22 years, reports GAMA president and CEO Peter J. Bunce, and this year should be even more buoyant. In addition, the number of aircraft exported from the United States surged 67 percent, accounting for 19 percent of overall shipments. It’s a percentage the industry expects will increase as general aviation gains a foothold in emerging markets.

“That market in China—always on the cusp—has finally started to arrive,” Bunce notes. More than 100 orders for China-bound aircraft were placed in 2005, a number that seems small but will double the general aviation fleet in China when deliveries are completed. That level though is considered the proverbial “drop in the bucket.” This year the Chinese government pledged to work on customs and immigration measures as well as airport and air-traffic control infrastructure to support general aviation, paving the way for increasing business-jet operations.

India, with its fast-growing economy, is also considered a market waiting to happen. Liberalized aviation policy has spawned a boom in air travel, with traffic expected to grow about 40 percent this year. Can business flying be far behind? Piaggio’s Appleton thinks not. India has already expressed interest in Piaggio’s distinctive and stylish Avanti II high-performance turboprop, which Appleton says is particularly suited to the Indian market.

“Until now, we have only been active in the European and North American markets, largely because we haven’t had the production capacity to build aircraft at a fast enough rate to satisfy other markets,” Appleton explains. But now, with additional investment and a planned 50 percent increase in production capacity, Piaggio can turn its attention to new sales opportunities. “We’re moving into other markets, including Latin America, India, China, Australia, and particularly the Middle East,” he says.

In its most recent annual business jet outlook, Rolls-Royce, whose engines power more than a third of the business jets being sold, forecast that China, India, and Russia combined are likely to take delivery of 500 to 700 business jets over the next 10 years, based upon expected economic and infrastructure growth. Other emerging markets with identified business-jet potential include Pakistan, Egypt, Venezuela, Australia, South Africa, Japan, Argentina, and Chile.

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