Dassault Aviation delivered nine Falcon business jets to operators in the Middle East last year, pushing the Falcon fleet in the region to almost 70 aircraft. “We are on a trend to increase our fleet by 10 percent. That is what we managed to do last year,” said Renauld Cloatre, Dassault’s Dubai-based Falcon sales director, speaking at the Air Expo show in Abu Dhabi today. “This year, we are into very strong negotiations on many different projects. It’s very good. We are very happy.”

The region is home to some of the world’s largest Falcon 7X operators, including Saudia Private Aviation (SPA), which unusually chose not to attend Abu Dhabi Air Expo this year, and Wallan Aviation, also of Saudi Arabia. “SPA participated in our success in 2013 because of the visibility they give us,” said Cloatre. “We have so many clients now who have had the chance to discover the Falcon 7X through SPA. In our Middle East fleet, very few aircraft are available for charter, and those are the four belonging to SPA. They have been helping us with a strong partnership. We can see their activities growing. I presume that they would get more aircraft under management or ownership. I assume their fleet will increase. We have more demand than there are available aircraft.”

According to the French manufacturer, it delivered more than 30 Falcon aircraft to customers in the Middle East region over the past five years, nearly doubling the regional Falcon fleet to 69 aircraft. Dassault is exhibiting its Falcon 7X flagship at the Air Expo, while also promoting the new Falcon 5X model, which is due to enter service in 2017. The Middle East accounts for around 40 percent of worldwide Falcon sales.

Dassault has authorized service center, a spares distribution depot and a regional sales office in Dubai. In Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the company has another authorized service center and a technical office.