Dassault Falcon Jet announced last month that as a central thrust in its strategy to bolster customer support it has spent more than $7 million on the Wilmington, Del. service facility and FBO that it bought from Atlantic Aviation in October 2000. Including the undisclosed purchase price, DFJ expects to invest $30 million in the facility all told. Part of that investment will be a new $9.5 million paint shop capable of processing 70 aircraft a year when it opens in the middle of next year. The Wilmington facility will log some $40 million in sales this year, according to DFJ officials, and that amount represents about a quarter of the company’s total customer-service revenues. The state recently eliminated the retail gross receipts tax on large aircraft sales in Delaware, adding to Wilmington’s appeal as a place to do business.

Jack Young, president of Dassault Falcon Jet Wilmington (DFJW), noted that Dassault Falcon Jet bought the Wilmington facility because it needed another support base beyond Little Rock (DFJ’s first company-owned service facility, bought from FedEx in the 1970s), and because it had to respond to a trend that saw Gulfstream buy K-C Aviation and Bombardier team with Lufthansa for support of European-based airplanes. The recent appointments of John Rahilly as v-p of national sales and marketing for DFJ’s service-center network and Todd McGahey as
v-p and general manager of the DFJW service center are intended to strengthen DFJ’s commitment to customer support (AIN, February, page 20). Rahilly’s relationship with Dassault goes back to his days as president of K-C Aviation, which until its acquisition by Gulfstream was the largest independent Falcon service center. Along with the new hires comes a new reporting structure, again intended to strengthen and standardize DFJ’s product support: both Little Rock and Wilmington will report directly to Wilmington-based Rahilly, whereas previously the Little Rock service operation reported to the management of the completion center based at the same Arkansas facility.