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Ultra-rich now opt for business jets with low-key glitz

High-flying private jet owners are choosing low-key interiors that reflect current economic conditions, with Middle Eastern monarchs shunning gold and precious stones in favor of classic woods and leather.

So says Aircraft Interior Products (AIP), a French company present at the Paris Air Show that has been providing custom-built decors in jets and helicopters for almost 40 years.

While future owners of executive aircraft pass regularly by the AIP stand, director Jean-Pierre Melin admits times are as tough for his business as elsewhere in the crisis-hit aerospace industry.

"We have four aircraft to decorate this year for foreign clients and are doing renovation work on Falcons and two Super Puma helicopters, compared with 1998 when we outfitted around twenty jets," he says.

AIP then had the contract for French Dassault Falcon jets ordered by Netjets, a US firm specialized in jointly-owned business aircraft, and decorated 70 planes in four years.

"Our profession is cyclical. We have already faced slumps. In 1993-94, the market was in a freefall but then picked up in 1995. We expect a rebound next year," he said.

Personal tastes are also subject to change and 1980s glitter has given way to understated elegance more fitting for the times.

"Luxury is not suspended in flight but industrial moguls, new economy survivors and oil princes now favor European styles, featuring noble materials and high-quality finishing.

Light-toned wood and hand-stitched beige leather are now in fashion," the AIP director notes.

The company, created in 1966, employs around 40 people, including carpenters and furniture and leather craftsmen familiar with cutting edge technologies.

"In a business jet, the panel of gauges weighs almost nothing. It is composed of aluminum honeycomb covered with exotic wood a few millimeters thick that gets several coats of varnish," a technician explains.

Rotating seats transform to beds and ultra-violet water purification systems allow for showers that consume 25 liters (6.5 gallons) of water compared with four times as much previously.

US clients prefer an airborne office option while Europeans opt for salon configurations, either of which cost between 150,000 and 450,000 euros, Melin says.

A full bath measuring three square meters for a private, commercial sized Airbus plane can run up to 500,000 euros (US$585,000), though even that is little compared to what a few are ready to spend.

A Saudi prince dreamed a few years ago of having a five-meter pool installed aboard a Boeing 747 jumbo jet.

Engineers finally convinced him that ferrying 20 tonnes of open water at an altitude of 10,000 meters was pushing laws of physics a bit, and the disappointed man finally settled for a jacuzzi.
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