The Jet Business Bloomberg Editorial October 2013
People drive by; they see this Airbus corporate jet in the window. They catch their attention, and they come in to see what this place is. It is the most global market of any industry. Africa is a big market. Asia is a big market. London was a location where all these people would pass through, and I would have an opportunity to meet them.
If somebody's going to buy something for $20, $40, or $80 million, you really need to see people face to face. We can compare any airplane, any manufacturer, to any other one. We can show on our video screen a full-size scale of the CR section or the FL plan, one airplane over another. People ask us a lot of times which is the best one. They all do the job; there's no perfect plane.
If somebody wanted to buy a Falcon 7X or a Gulfstream 550, we would call every single owner of that jet in the world, narrow it down to three or four airplanes, and then go to see which one of these makes sense. Then we try to attack the sellers about trying to negotiate the best price for the buyer.
We get the most successful people in the world coming in here, and it's interesting to learn about their industry, what they think about the markets, and what they think about their sector. So it's relationship building just as much as it is trying to sell an airplane.