On a sunny day in June, executives from the Brazilian aerospace giant Embraer arrived in Las Vegas to show off one of the company’s jets, the Legacy 500.
They introduced local media to the sleek corporate aircraft as it sat in front of a private terminal at McCarran International Airport. And then, while climbing to 30,000 feet for a quick flight to the Grand Canyon, showcased its sofa and swiveling leather seats that turn into beds, an in-flight entertainment system controlled by a mobile app and an ultramodern fly-by-wire system.
Total price: Upward of $18 million.
But don’t be fooled by the hardwood paneling and built-in wine cooler; aircraft like the Legacy 500 are more than just toys for jet-setting celebrities and multimillionaires. They are “executive jets,” falling under what the aerospace industry calls “business aviation.”
They allow companies to avoid the headaches commonly associated with air travel: long lines, security hassles and lost baggage. Most important, they save time. Where making your way through an airport usually takes hours of driving, parking, walking, sitting and waiting, private jets are ready to go almost the moment passengers arrive.
You could be landing at your destination on a private jet by the time you’d still be taking off on a commercial airliner. The bonuses to efficiency and productivity are considered worth the investment.
“They are business tools,” said Cameron Gowans, Embraer’s vice president of sales in the western U.S. “It gives companies a direct A to B.”
Sales of such aircraft reached an all-time high from in 2008, the height of the housing bubble and what many viewed as the zenith of corporate excess. A total of 1,317 business jets were delivered worldwide in 2008, and while that number fell to 672 by 2012, it’s on the rise.
Last year, Embraer reported it had doubled aircraft deliveries in Las Vegas.
“Las Vegas is a key market for business aviation, and we have noticed an upward trend in business jet deliveries there over the last couple of years,” David Armstrong, Embraer’s senior vice president for North America sales, said in a statement.
Many of those jets find their way to Las Vegas, a fact famously illustrated in May 2015 by a photo tweeted by sports anchor Liz Habib, showing dozens of gleaming white jets parked wing to wing at McCarran on the eve of a boxing match between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao.
Last year marked the busiest year for McCarran since the recession, and private aircraft traffic is higher than ever.
Arrivals and departures at McCarran’s private terminals are up across the board. A combined 418,984 passengers passed through the airport’s private terminals last year. In 2007, the busiest year in McCarran’s 68-year history, that number was 268,284.
But in terms of the number of private planes taking off and landing each year, present levels have yet to climb back to the 2007 peak.
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McCarran has two terminals serving private aircraft. Atlantic Aviation and Signature Flight Support operate facilities on the airport’s western edge, where they offer refueling services, hangar space, lounges, food and other goodies mostly for private and corporate pilots.
They also provide privacy for high-profile guests who want to avoid crowded terminals. Walk into Atlantic Aviation’s facility on Tropicana Avenue with a press badge or camera, and you’ll quickly be approached by a staff member demanding to know what you’re doing.
A major pull for private air traffic in Las Vegas has been the city’s ability to attract major conventions. The loaded convention calendar makes for a constant flow of corporate jets that Michael Wheeler, director of Atlantic Aviation’s McCarran terminal, wouldn’t have seen in his recent post at the company’s Chicago facility at Midway International Airport.
“Casinos seem really to be the big driver,” he said. “The business here continues to be a little more diversified than what it was in the past. That’s helped it to be a bit more stable.”
The days leading up to the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight at MGM Grand were the busiest for the private terminals in recent memory.
The city also plays host every other year to the National Business Aviation Association’s trade show, which in 2015 brought hundreds of private jets to McCarran and Henderson Executive Airport, along with an estimated $22 million in revenue.
Henderson Executive, which acts as a relief airport for McCarran, serves private and corporate pilots almost exclusively.
PrivateFly — think Expedia for private flights — operates in Las Vegas and airports around the world. Founder Adam Twidell, a former pilot for the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force, says business in the United States is expanding more than 75 percent each year, compared with 50 percent in Europe.
“When the recession hit, the industry took a battering,” he said. “Vegas is bouncing back a lot more than other cities.”
Popular flights to and from Las Vegas include San Francisco, New York and Miami, but the most trafficked one by far is to and from Los Angeles.
“It’s not like an airline; if you are running late to your jet, it’s not going to leave without you,” Twidell said.
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Las Vegas also is the base of operations for globe-spanning resort companies such as MGM Resorts and Las Vegas Sands Corp., where private jets serve the dual purpose of bringing in high rollers and allowing executives quick and easy access to company properties around the world.
Sands, owned by Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson, declined to speak publicly about its fleet, but some accounts claim the company has operated as many as 17 private jets, including a short-body variant of the Boeing 747, multiple 737s and an assortment of Gulfstream jets. The planes are often spotted on the taxiways of Singapore and Macau, where Sands operates a number of opulent resorts.
Unsurprisingly, resort companies also maintain some of the largest private jet fleets in the state.
Late last year, MGM ordered six new executive jets from Embraer, including three Legacy 500s, according to trade publications. MGM officials also declined to speak about its fleet, but MGM Resorts CEO Jim Murren said in a statement at the time that the purchase was meant to replace some of the company’s older aircraft.
“A vitally important element of our overall guest service is delivering a comfortable travel experience to some of our more important guests,” Murren said.
Private jets might be an invaluable tool for resorts, but you won’t find companies saying a lot about them publicly.
Celebrating the opening of a 570,000-square-foot hangar in 2013, Las Vegas Sands threw what was described in news reports as a “soiree” for a select group of high rollers and executives.
Reporters, however, weren’t invited.