On the Record with
JOHN ROSANVALLON, PRESIDENT, DASSAULT FALCON JET CORP.

Satisfied Falcon Extending Product Line

Falcon president John Rosanvallon

"The industry is in good shape but not everybody is in the same shape." So states a very satisfied Dassault Falcon Jet president John Rosanvallon, arriving in New Orleans with 60 aircraft orders under his belt through the first three quarters of 2000, and the expectation of 80 for the year.

"We are coming with very good news in terms of market share and overall health," he says.

"Over 300 airplanes in four years," Rosanvallon reports. "We gained market share over our two main competitors." Falcon's upper end business jet sales are stronger than those of Gulfstream and Bombardier, he indicates. The strong year, Rosanvallon asserts, "makes us by far the number one manufacturer in the high end of the business."

Being unveiled at NBAA 2000 is a new Falcon twinjet, the 2000EX, with Pratt & Whitney engines. It joins the Honeywell CFE738-engined Falcon 2000 and the firm's 50EX, 900C and 900EX trijets.

"We have a four-Falcon family," Rosanvallon told Show News. "It's nice to make it larger." The four Falcons range in price from about $18.3 million for a 50EX to more than $31 million for a 900EX.

The Falcon family of five is more formidable now too, with increased range making the new 2000EX an even stronger competitor to Bombardier's Challenger 604, and with a new Honeywell avionics package for the 50EX being promoted here as well.

Flock of four is becoming five with 2000EX.

Rosanvallon describes the 50EX as a 'niche' airplane, with sales and production of just one to one-and-a-half per month. "We have two big winners," he says, "the 2000 and the Falcon 900 in its two versions." Executive Jets' NetJets fractional ownership plan is a key Falcon 2000 customer, with some 60, all-told, on order. It's particularly strong in Europe, Rosanvallon says.

People continue to ask Falcon about the possibility of a supersonic business jet, especially as, with the arguable exception of Boeing, Dassault Falcon is the only company that produces both business jets and supersonic (fighter) aircraft. "We have a fairly good idea of what we could do," Rosanvallon says, but commercial viability of an SBJ continues to be stymied principally by the engine durability challenge.

"The situation has not changed," says the Falcon Jet president. "It's on the shelf until we can resolve the propulsion issue." Also putting a damper on SBJ enthusiasm is the "sad accident of the Concorde." The supersonic airliner crashed in Paris, killing 113, as the Farnborough International Air Show got underway in Britain this past July.

Better news from Europe, Rosanvallon says, is resolution of Dassault ownership in the context of the new EADS European aerospace conglomerate. EADS will keep its approximately 45% share in Dassault, which continues to hold 100% of New Jersey-based Falcon Jet. About half of Dassault continues in the hands of the Dassault family, with the remaining small fraction public. "It's a sound and normal situation," Rosanvallon says, noting that there is no more French government ownership.

The Falcon Jet and combat aircraft operations have been formally segregated into two divisions as of the first of the year, Rosanvallon points out, but says there'll be no spin-off or other such corporate ownership news at NBAA 2000.

Challenges ahead? Keeping aircraft price competitive as salary escalation pushes costs up by 4% to 5% per year, and making sure there are enough pilots, and service technicians, to maintain the ever-growing business aircraft fleet into the future. "The biggest challenge facing the industry over the next five years" is maintenance, Rosanvallon says, "That's priority number one."

By Rich Piellisch