“With all due respect, you shouldn’t wear stiletto heels on an aircraft.”
The warning is given in English by a Gulfstream representative, noting the shoes a visitor wears while walking and taking pictures inside one of the company’s jets.
The jump, she says, could end up damaging the carpet of the luxurious G500, a model that costs around US$ 50 million (R$ 240 million) and has a capacity for up to 19 passengers.
The aircraft is one of five that are on display at the Catarina Aviation Show, an executive aviation event that began this Thursday (2), in São Roque (about 70 km from the capital of São Paulo).
For this first edition, the chosen location was Catarina Airport, the first private airfield in Brazil to receive international flights. It was there that billionaire Elon Musk landed his jet when he came to Brazil on the 20th of May — coincidentally, aboard a Gulfstream.
Exclusively for guests, the meeting is aimed at the airplane and helicopter market, but also brings together other luxury experiences. Inside the hangar, visitors can eat at a scaled-down version of the Fasano restaurant, drink whiskey at the Johnnie Walker stand or buy pieces by the Italian brand Brunello Cucinelli.
Outside, it is also possible to test-drive Audi, Jaguar and Land Rover cars.
On the first day of the event, which runs until Saturday (4), the audience was mainly composed of pilots, professionals from sectors related to aviation and company guests. Between business conversations and visits to the interior of the superjets, there was no shortage of selfies.
Catarina Aviation Show was promoted by JHSF, a shopping mall and real estate company that owns Catarina Airport, in partnership with NürnbergMesse Brasil, one of the largest event promotion companies in the world.
According to the organizers, the objective is to bring together brands and those interested in executive aviation, a market that has experienced a boom since the beginning of the pandemic.
In recent months, the demand for private planes has grown so much in Brazil that in order to buy a new aircraft, millionaires and billionaires are having to face waiting lines that can last for years.
Not even at the event it was possible to easily find ready-to-ship models. Almost all of the five planes and three helicopters that were there were for visitor exhibition only. The Gulfstream G500, for example, was “lent” to the event by its owner — according to the company, an Argentine who lives in Uruguay.
Gualter Helicopters, a company that works mainly with used aircraft, was the only one to have a unit for sale during the meeting: an Agusta A109E Power helicopter.
“I have 35 years in this market and I have never seen anything like what we are going through”, says Gualter Pizzi, owner of the company.
According to him, delivery times are too long. For a Robinson R66, for example —which is considered an entry-level model among turbine helicopters— Pizzi estimates a period of 15 to 20 months.
The model is worth around US$ 1.5 million (R$ 7.18 million), with a fixed cost of R$ 50 thousand per month. That’s with the aircraft stopped, he says, considering only pilot, hangar and insurance expenses.
Among jets, the waiting time can be even longer. Sergio Beneditti, director of Plane Aviation, says that for some models the queue exceeds three years.
The company is the exclusive representative of the Cirrus and Maule brands in Brazil. The Cirrus SF50 Vision — valued at US$ 3.7 million (R$ 17.7 million) — was one of those on display at the event and, according to him, there are more than 400 buyers waiting. “Currently, a customer interested in buying the aircraft can’t do it until 2026,” he says.
Beneditti explains that the manufacturer delivers approximately 100 units a year and, even with the boom in demand, is unable to increase its production because of the disruption in the supply chain. “There’s no turbine, no brake disc, no manpower… It’s the collapse that Covid has put on the entire world.”
According to the executive, the jet market could be even bigger, since the volatility of the dollar and high interest rates are factors that usually slow down the performance of the sector. On the other hand, he evaluates the current economic scenario positively and says that problems such as high inflation are happening all over the world.
“Honestly, I can’t complain about how things went last year and this year. [na economia]. We’re doing fine,” she says.
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