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Reports
Flying palaces
30 REPORT
By Andreas Spaeth
For their private air travels, mahogany row executives, heads of state, Arab rulers and billionaires everywhere are
increasingly trading their cramped business jets for spacious modified jetliners of all sizes, including Airbus A380 megatransports.
This is where they can wallow in infinite luxury among such amenities as double beds, showers, steam baths
and temperature-controlled wine cabinets, the vast cabin floor space of their private jetliners easily accommodating
their most extravagant furnishing fancies.
Sometime, the Airbus A380 will ply the air as the world’s largest and most luxurious
VIP transport.
For the big aircraft makers, the trend toward
private jetliners has opened up a new, lucrative
playing field. It was Boeing that started
the ball rolling in 1996 with its 737NG-based
Boeing Business Jet (BBJ), which by now has
sold over a hundred copies. Youngest scion
of the private deluxe airliner family is the
BBJ3 that is based on the 737-900ER and
provides maximum creature comforts for as
many as 50 users on 104 square meters of
Sterling elegance pervades the lounge of a Boeing
business jet.
floor space. And taking VIP air travel to new
heights, Boeing plans to launch a VIP 787
that offers 214 square meters of cabin space
for 75 passengers on a plane that with its
19,240-kilometer range capability can reach
any airport in the world non-stop. The Seattle
planemaker’s European rival Airbus has so
far fought back with its A319 Corporate
Jetliner (ACJ) but recently begun touting a
low-end, A318-based business variant it calls
the A318 Elite. The allure of that plane—
optionally powered by the PW6000 engine
co-developed by MTU—is that while in a standard
version it costs no more than a long-
REPORT 31