If James Bond were to buy a private jet, he would probably go to One Grosvenor Place in Belgravia, London.
Q&A: Steve Varsano on The Jet Business
Why did you set up the The Jet Business? People conducted business mainly over the phone to buy planes and would never meet the person face-to-face. They would sell a US$40 to US$50 million asset and never meet the person. I thought I could do it better.
So is it easier to sell a plane if you meet someone face-to-face? You have to catch these guys interest when it's peaking, because it can take a long time to buy a plane.
How many of your customers already have planes? About two thirds are the type of client where they know what is out there or they think they know what planes are available. The other third are people that might have just taken their company public and want to buy a plane but do not know anything about jets.
There, he would find a shop front that looks like the plush interior of an airplane.
Once he was inside, in typical Bond-film fashion the shop assistant would click a button and the shop front would become obscured - rendering the inside invisible to the outside world.
"You see through it one minute and then it goes opaque the next," says Steve Varsano, the founder and director of The Jet Business showroom, which opened this month.
Mr Varsano's neat Bond-style trick is in place so that celebrities, royals and others of means can shop discreetly. Although The Jet Business facility is called a showroom, only one person or client group is hosted at a time.
Mr Varsano says he has so far welcomed nine billionaires, a former prime minister of a Middle Eastern country, three bank presidents, the sales managers of all the global civilian aircraft manufacturers and about 25 others who are not really of note - other than that have a lot of money. The jets cost US$1 million (Dh3.67m) to US$90m, with the "sweet spot" at about US$15m to US$60m, Mr Varsano says. Shoppers are immediately introduced to an 8.5 metre by 2.8 metre screen on which to view the planes and interiors.
"When we are selling a plane, we get photos taken in high resolution," says Mr Varsano. "You really feel like you are inside the plane when you look at the photograph on the screen."
The giant screen is hooked up to an application that takes shoppers through every aspect of a plane to ultimately cut a list of more than 120 jets down to a shortlist of fewer than five.
The process factors in price, the distance the buyer is likely to travel, the manufacturer and other important considerations.
To finish the deal, Mr Varsano pushes a button on the giant TV and a hidden door opens through the TV to a full mock-up of a jet cabin and his office.
Top 5: Most expensive private jets
1 Gulfstream G550: $59.9 million
2 Boeing Business Jet 2: $55.5m
3 Bombardier Global Express XRS: $47.7m
4 Gulfstream V-SP: $45m
5 Dassault Falcon 7X: $41m
Source: www.privatejetchartertravel.com
Even Bond might be impressed with that.
The Quote: A camel makes an elephant feel like a jet plane. - Jackie Kennedy, wife of the former US president
