As the business jet industry expands geographically, if not economically, companies are finding well-heeled customers all over the world and oil-rich Nigeria is among the newest targets for the well-traveled sales leaders of the major airframers. According to the Daily Independent at least six high-end business jets have been sold to Nigerian nationals in the last year. The new airplane owners, all of them billionaires, took delivery, collectively, of about $225 million worth of aircraft.
At least two of the sales went to Bombardier, with industrialists buying Global Express XRS aircraft, Bombardier’s current top-of-the-line model. A religious leader bought a Gulfstream V. The newspaper wasn’t able to identify the owners of the three other aircraft but said sources pegged their value at a minimum of $35 million each. The aircraft are based at Lagos’s Murtala Muhammed Airport.
