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26 July 2000
For the first time at a public venue, a fully completed Boeing Business Jet, finished with executive interior and fitted with "blended winglets" is on display in England at the Farnborough International air show.
The airplane arrived over the weekend with Boeing Chairman and CEO Phil Condit, BBJ president Borge Boeskov and others aboard.
The brand-new BBJ, delivered recently to Boeing, will perform double duty as a working tool for Boeing executives and as a sales demonstrator for Boeing Business Jets. Dubbed "BCJ1", for Boeing Corporate Jet number 1, the visiting airplane's configuration comes with two full baths (each with its own shower) bedrooms, office, meeting and dining room, lounge and crew rest facilities.
"The BBJ makes us much more productive," said Phil Condit. "The space, onboard communications technology, living and working accommodations and performance reliability provide a travel environment that lets us work as though we are in the home office."
Keeping pace with business globalisation and advances in technology, the BBJ features Connexion by BoeingSM- the company's mobile broadband initiative that will provide commercial airline and business jet travellers real-time, high-speed, two-way access to e-mail, Internet, corporate Intranet and live news and entertainment while in flight.
Condit, who travels most of the year, noted that a round-the-world business trip, which used to take 9-10 days on a traditional business jet, could be done in 4-5 days with the BBJ.
"With nearly three-times the space of traditional business jets, the BBJ lets our management team eat, sleep, work and even entertain while we travel and no matter where we happen to be in the world," he said. "It relieves us of the need to check in and out of hotels, visit restaurants and spend time processing through congested airport terminals. The bottom line is that we are much more productive than we could be without the BBJ."
Among the newest technology on the BBJ being shown for the first time at Farnborough - and by far the most visible new feature of the Boeing Business Jet - are the more than eight-foot high blended technology winglets at the tip of each BBJ wing. Used for several years on smaller bizjets, blended winglets are now standard equipment on the BBJ.
Designed by Aviation Partners Inc., a Seattle based company, the blended winglets have been flight-tested extensively over the past two years and are being shown in production version for the first time this year at Farnborough. Boeing has announced a joint venture with Aviation Partners Inc. to make retrofit blended winglets available for airline customers. Besides giving the BBJ a sportier, more "bizjet-like" appearance, the winglets create more efficient flight characteristics for the airplane, translating into approximately 200 nautical miles of additional range with the same fuel and payload.
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