Asia Demo Tour – Opening up new markets with the PC-24 Super Versatile Jet
Interest in our aircraft is growing in Asia – including in Southeast Asia and Japan. Recently, we were delighted to present the PC-24 and its unique capabilities to a customer on a private island north of Palawan in the Philippines. A superb backdrop for our high-performance Super Versatile Jet!
The “Asia Tour” kicked off at the Singapore Airshow in late February. After a lengthy absence, Pilatus was back again at Asia’s most important aviation show, ready to show off the PC-24. With our strategy for Asia in mind, it was a great opportunity for Stephan Forte, Sales Manager Business Aviation, to foster contacts with existing customers and new prospects: “There’s great potential in the Asian region – it’s a market we need to develop. And the timing is ideal, especially in Southeast Asia, where people are ‘waiting’ for our PC-24.
We’ve seen a similar trend in Japan. We delivered two aircraft there last year – we’ll soon have five aircraft in Japan already. We know that once we have an aircraft in place, people tend to take notice of it. With Singapore and the Philippines, we have two more promising hotspots, and we now need to build on them.”
Local support
Local support is one of the prerequisites for success with our Asia strategy. That support is to be expanded further. Pilatus currently has two PC-12 Service Centers in Asia. One of them, the “Asian Aerospace Corporation” Center in Manila, is to be upgraded so that it can provide seamless support for the PC-24 as well.
In the run-up to the Singapore Airshow, Pilatus organized a pre-event with the “WingsOverAsia” Service Center at the latter’s hangar at Seletar Airport, Singapore. Stephan Forte reports that this was particularly well received by those who were unable to attend the airshow: “Feedback on the PC-12 and PC-24 was very positive, with many admitting to surprise at the performance of the two aircraft. Until they talked to us, some people were not fully aware that our aircraft are capable of operating on short and unpaved runways. That unique feature is in high demand in Southeast Asia, with so many islands. We also noted growing interest in medevac aircraft.”
Cultural differences and feedback
Stephan Forte stresses that the success of our Asia strategy also depends on our ability to fit in with the respective cultures and adopt the appropriate approach: “In the various countries across Asia, people work differently to how we work in Europe, and in Switzerland in particular. There is a lot of Spanish flair in the Philippines, for example. People work together in a friendly, open, cordial way. In Japan, on the other hand, working relationships are more complex, very distant and incredibly polite. And Singapore is almost ‘Asia for Beginners’, ideal for a good introduction to Asia. Each country attaches more or less importance to different values, so approaches vary considerably. All of which makes working here all the more fascinating and rich in variety.”
A landing in paradise
The detour with the PC-24 to the Philippines was an obvious choice, explains Stephan Forte: “Being in the region, we thought we’d fly to Pamalican Island to the north of Palawan. We have a customer there whose PC-24 is scheduled for delivery in January 2025 and we wanted to give him a little taste of what the Super Versatile Jet is capable of. Until then, he’d never actually seen a PC-24 fly ‘live’.”
Just 1.6 miles long (2.5 kilometers) and 1,600 feet wide (500 meters), Pamalican Island sits in the middle of a coral reef in the northern Sulu Sea. The island is known for its “Amanpulo” luxury resort in particular, and can only be reached by water or air. Those with the financial means to do so fly to the island. As Stephan Forte says: “For the people in Southeast Asia, Pamalican Island is the equivalent of St. Tropez, Portofino or Courchevel in Europe.”
The landing on Pamalican Island was not exactly a routine affair for the two pilots, Dominik Waser and Reto Obrist. “The narrow runway and strong crosswind were, shall we say, ‘interesting’! The turbulence caused by the trees close to the edge of the runway was a bit unusual, too”, says Dominik Waser. “But everything went well, we landed safely and were proud to show off the mobility and versatility of the PC-24 yet again!” “The successful landing allowed us to demonstrate how the Super Versatile Jet is actually built for this type of unusual runway. Now we can concentrate on promoting its profile across the Southeast Asian region”, adds Stephan Forte.
Teamwork
Months of preparation went into the demo tour in Southeast Asia. Stephan Forte, Dominik Waser and Reto Obrist not only had to plan the three-day return flight to Singapore with the PC-24, they also invested a lot of very good teamwork in organizing attendance at the Singapore Airshow, the pre-event and the landing on Pamalican Island. “With unusual assignments like these, we have to be quite sure of what we’re all doing and talk everything through in detail”, emphasizes Dominik Waser. They certainly succeeded – as shown, among other things, by the wealth of positive feedback from existing customers and new prospects.