NetJets Orders Reach $7 Billion

Executive Jet Aviation's order backlog for its NetJets fractional ownership program surpassed the 400 aircraft mark and the $7 billion figure here as the company disclosed new orders for the Boeing BBJ, the new Cessna Sovereign, and the Gulfstream GIVSP and GV.

The BBJ order is for nine aircraft with options for 16 more. Quarter shares will sell for $11.2 million, and the monthly and hourly fees will be $64,000 and $3,400, respectively. The new Gulfstream orders include 14 additional GIV-SPs, and 12 new GVs, with 12 additional on option.

But perhaps the most impressive order is for 50 new Citation Sovereigns, as well as an option for 50 more, helping propel the Sovereign order book to 70 aircraft even before the new aircraft was officially launched here. Sovereigns, which NetJets and Cessna officials see as a logical step-up aircraft from Citation Ultras, won't be shipped to EJA until well into 2002, shortly after the it's scheduled to be certificated.

Since EJA launched NetJets and the concept of fractional ownership in 1986 with Citation S-IIs, the company has built its shared-ownership fleet to 170 aircraft and 1,100 owners, and plans to chip away at its backlog by taking about 40 aircraft per year. The company says it is adding about 30 new owners a month. It anticipates an operational fleet of nearly 300 aircraft and about 2,000 customers by 2002.

At the press gathering here yesterday in which Cessna CEO Russ Meyer and EJA CEO Richard Santulli disclosed the Sovereign order, Santulli said that because of its speed, the Citation X is his biggest selling aircraft (and thus one of NetJet's biggest backlogs). He quipped, in fact, about the kick pilots and passengers get when they pass other airplanes enroute.

Even Santulli expressed disappointment once when had had to leave on a business trip 35 minutes earlier than planned on another aircraft because a Citation X wasn't available.

By Gordon A. Gilbert