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To view this page ensure that Adobe Flash Player version 9.0.124 or greater is installed. Crucially, Dassault, the one company with a new product, is the only business jet manufacturer that does not need to ex-plain itself to equities markets and other sources of finance. Its shares are almost en-tirely held by the Dassault family or EADS. An uncertain market environment also has a chilling effect on new manufac-turers. Only big companies have the re-sources and critical mass to develop new aircraft, and to withstand market down-turns. And the aviation industry in general has always been hostile to newcomers. Since 1960, only one all-new entrant— Embraer—has succeeded in delivering more than one civil jet per month on a sustained basis. This hostility helps stifle innovation. But the uncertain market cannot be blamed for the paucity of new business jet models and technology. The broader market forces that caused this paucity are unlikely to diminish. Microjet controversy All of the above trends—the desperate search for business jet market expansion, the bias against startup companies, and the increasing difficulty of new product launches—can be seen in the controversy over microjets. For years, this exciting new concept has waited patiently. But the next few years will be crucial in determining if the idea has a The Cessna Mustang is expected to be one of the success stories in the very light jet market. chance. Noting the success en-joyed by Cessna’s CitationJet family and other Williams In-ternational FJ44-powered jets, numerous designers have pro-posed even smaller planes, powered by single engines, and, in some cases, two smaller engines. To succeed, the new light jets can choose either of two paths. First, they can seek to be part of a new air taxi service partner (such as Nimbus, proposed for the Eclipse jet). Yet this is a difficult prospect. Any such service would need to start with hundreds of planes and scores of bases to avoid flying money-losing “deadhead” flights—non-revenue-producing trips in-curred by the need to fly clients to loca-tions where there might not be another client waiting for a plane. |
