Gulfstream Moves To Reclaim High Ground From Bombardier With Luxe New $75M Executive Jet

The Gulfstream G650 was the undisputed king of business jets until the Bombardier Global 7500 showed up this year. On Monday evening in Las Vegas, Gulfstream unveiled a new plane designed to take back the crown that the company says will have the largest, most comfortable cabin on the market. It will also be the most expensive business jet on the market with a list price of $75 million.

The G700, which is based on the fuselage of the G650, will match that plane's industry-leading maximum speed of Mach 0.925 despite its greater size, thanks to new Rolls-Royce Pearl 700 engines. Gulfstream opted not to try to top the Global 7500's market-leading range of 7,700 nautical miles-with a range of 7,500 nm, the G700 arguably gets close enough. Instead, Gulfstream is positioning the G700 as giving owners more space, in every dimension.

"The tallest, widest, longest cabin in business aviation," Gulfstream President Mark Burns said-twice-while introducing the company's new flagship jet.

With a length of 109 feet 10 inches, the G700 will be 10 feet longer that the G650 and a foot shorter than Bombardier's Global 7500, but it will have a 2-foot-longer cabin (56 feet, 11 inches), a smidge higher height of 6 feet 3 inches and a little more room at the waist: 8 feet 2 inches.

That will accommodate a master bedroom suite with a spa shower, matching the Global 7500 (the standard in the G650 is a seat that can be converted to a bed), and the cabin will be able to be divided into five living areas, one more than the Global 7500, including a dining area with a table that can seat six, and a 10-foot galley.

In other passenger comforts, Burns said the plane will be pressurized to have the lowest cabin altitude in the industry, less than 4,000 feet at most cruising altitudes, as well as the quietest cabin, and will have a circadian lighting system that mimics sunrise to sunset.

Qatar Airways will be the launch customer with an order of ten planes for its charter service Qatar Executive. Flexjet has ordered an unspecified number.

The plane's avionics and cockpit are based on Gulfstream's newest and most advanced jets, the G500 and G600, and the company plans to get the G700 approved by safety regulators under their type certificate. Deliveries are expected to begin in 2022.

Gulfsteam and parent company General Dynamics are hoping the G700 will have similar appeal as the G650, which after its launch in 2012 quickly became a must-have status symbol for the rich and famous, boasting a luxe, spacious cabin, the longest range of any business jet and the highest speed of any nonmilitary aircraft. Gulfstream introduced an extended range version in 2014 capable of going 7,000 nm.

At a current list price of about $73 million a pop, the G650 has been a huge moneymaker for General Dynamics and the most successful plane of the past decade. Gulfstream delivered 336 of the planes through 2018, Teal Group estimates (the company doesn't report deliveries by model).

Gulfstream got seven years alone at the top with the G650 as Bombardier's efforts to develop a competing plane were delayed amid its struggles with the CSeries, an ambitious, money-draining attempt by the Montreal-based company to move up in size to challenge Airbus and Boeing at the smaller end of the airliner market.

The Global 7500, certified late last year, threatened to turn the tables on Gulfstream in the most important segment of the business aviation market. Honeywell forecasts largecabin jets will account for 73% of overall sales by dollar value over the next five years. The Teal Group expects Bombardier to deliver 345 Global 7500s through 2028.

The G700 should restore the balance of power, but with two strong players now, neither is likely to reap the high profits Gulfstream enjoyed for so long with the G650, says Richard Aboulafia, an analyst with Teal Group. And with a march higher in performance and price, the market for high-end jets won't keep growing indefinitely, he warns.

At Bombardier's press conference earlier in the day before the opening of the NBAA business aviation conference, executive jet division chief David Coleal took a veiled potshot at the derivative nature of the soon-to-be-unveiled G700 while touting the benefits of the 7500 as an all-new design: "Remember, anything else out there is just a stretch."