Gulfstream views India as a long-term growth market for its range of business jets, said its top official at India Aviation 2012, Roger Sperry, regional senior vice president, International Sales for South America and the Far East. Gulfstream brought its large-cabin, long-range G450 to Hyderabad show (March 14-18) as well as a wide-cabin, high-speed G150. “Gulfstream has been part of the India market for more than two decades,” said Sperry, “providing long-range transportation to India’s largest companies. We have been part of their global growth and have, indeed, facilitated that growth by enabling executives to move rapidly and easily from continent to continent. “Our market in the Asia Pacific has been our fastest growing of recent years, today accounting for 27 percent of our aircraft-order backlog. We’ve been moving more product support resources into the region to support today’s operators and position ourselves for growth.” “We’re very pleased to announce at this show that we will be basing a country parts manager,Aniruddh Srivastava, in India beginning this year to oversee parts storage and distribution in the country,” Sperry noted. “We believe we will be ahead of the industry by having a dedicated manager here focused on this aspect of service to customers.” Gulfstream maintains major parts bases in the region, including Dubai and Hong Kong. Commenting on the state of business aviation in India, Sperry said, “We are here to promote Gulfstream, but equally to promote the concept that business aviation builds businesses, particularly in a globalized economy.” Gulfstream customers have 20 business jets based in India and 175 in the Asia Pacific region, up from just 27 a decade ago. “We are focused on the future,” Sperry said, noting that two new products, the G280 and G650, were slated for certification and customer delivery in the second quarter of this year.“The G280 leads the super-midsize segment in performance, and the G650, with a range of 12,000 km and a top speed of Mach 0.925, simply creates a category unto itself. They will create great opportunities for us in India and around the world,” Sperry said.
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