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Market for corporate jets goes into free fall

Just seven months ago, hundreds of mega-millionaires, including Ralph Lauren and David Geffen, were elbowing one another in the lineup to buy a $60 million Gulfstream G650, which was not expected to hit runways until 2012.

It did not matter that $500,000 had to be wired to Gulfstream’s account at a Midwest branch of JPMorgan Chase at exactly 12:01 a.m. on April 15, or that bidders who secured a place in the waiting line could not sell their rights if they changed their minds, according to one bidder.

Some eager moguls even tried to improve their chances of getting a jet quicker by opening accounts at Chase’s Midwest office. Among high-ticket status symbols, “me and my brand-new jet” was it. But that was another era, before the credit crisis and before billions of dollars in corporate and individual wealth were lost.

“The jet market stinks,” said Richard Santulli, the chief executive of Netjets, the private jet company owned by Berkshire Hathaway, the holding company of Warren E. Buffett. To control costs, companies including Citigroup and Time Warner are selling their jets. Alcatel-Lucent has allowed leases on two jets to expire, without renewing them, and has put its third jet up for sale.

General Motors, which leases seven planes, put the majority on the market before the government said it must do so as a condition of government assistance. — New York Times News Service

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