Opinion / Coronavirus battered Boeing and crippled the aviation industry – but demand for Gulfstream private jets is soaring as safety becomes the ultimate luxury
2020 has been a disaster for the vast majority of the aviation industry because of the coronavirus pandemic, but interest in private planes, where the wealthy can escape the general public as they fly, has surged
This is part of STYLE’s Inside Luxury column.
Something unthinkable just happened.
If you were to ask anyone who the largest US plane maker is, most people would answer – without hesitation – Boeing. For the second quarter of 2020, this answer would be wrong. The company, for decades the world’s largest manufacturer of aircraft, has dramatically lost momentum with a series of quality problems and launch delays.
The crash of two 737 Max, followed by a seemingly never-ending sequence of new issues and delays in fixing the troubled plane, has cost the company billions and eroded a substantial amount of trust in the safety of its newest aircraft and consequently, its brand equity.
Then came the pandemic.
Just as it does to people, it hit companies with pre-existing conditions dramatically harder. With intercontinental air travel at a near standstill, and a drastic reduction in domestic travel, airlines are selling planes they do not need any more and have stopped buying new ones.
For Boeing, already in deep trouble, this led to a major crisis. As The Wall Street Journal reported on July 29, Boeing announced a staggering loss of US$2.4 billion in the second quarter and plans to become smaller to save cost and adjust to the new reality of less commercial demand over the coming years. When a brand loses trust, especially in such a sensitive area as air travel, customers will leave. They leave entire segments, and they leave specific brands.
When people don’t feel safe, they don’t travel. They may feel unsafe because they don’t trust a particular aircraft brand, and especially in these unprecedented times, they fear that they can get infected by the coronavirus at the airport or during a flight. Safety, once assumed by so many as a given, becomes a luxury once it’s not seen as ubiquitous any more. And this has consequences.