“It’s had an impact,” says Manfred Baudzus, sales director at Embraer Executive Jets Asia Pacific. “Resources aren’t booming anymore, anywhere. A lot of people buying jets were in that area because they need them to fly around, so that area has slowed up.”
Baudzus made the comments during a presentation in Singapore related to the company’s Legacy 500 business jet, which is on a marketing tour of the region. Apart from Singapore, the US-registered aircraft will stop in China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and India.
So far, only one example of the type has been delivered in Asia Pacific, to a customer in Australia. This aircraft appeared at Shanghai’s ABACE private jet gathering in April.
“Generally, around Asia private jet demand has plateaued for the moment,” he says. “You’ll find that everywhere…it’s certainly harder to find the clients in Asia than it was some years ago, and you’ve got to work a lot harder today.”
The one bright spot Baudzus sees is the Philippines, where the number of high net worth individuals has been growing. Still, he says this opportunity is mainly confined to the smaller aircraft in the Embraer range, the Phenom 100 and 300.
“The global guys [in the Philippines] already have airplanes, and they are unlikely to be changing anything in a real hurry,” he adds.
More broadly, Embraer says the US market should see growth owing to an improving economy there, while in Europe demand remains weak.
According to the Asian Sky Group’s Asia Pacific Business Jet Fleet Report for 2014, Embraer had 44 aircraft operating in the Asian region, excluding the Indian and Australian markets.
(Greg Waldron - Flightglobal News)
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