The private-aviation market has cooled since the pandemic boom time. Every rich person seems to be unloading the family plane. But it’s not all bad news: often, the sellers are also buyers, looking to upgrade to something bigger than their neighbor’s Dassault Falcon 900EX or Bombardier Challenger 300. The other day, at Teterboro Airport, in New Jersey, eight miles from midtown, a would-be buyer looked over some gently used merchandise.
His sales guides were Don Dwyer and Don’s little brother, Mike, who arrived by air in their blue-and-white Daher TBM 700 single-engine turboprop. Conditions: significant wind shear, gusting to thirty-four knots from the northwest. Moderate turbulence. Don, who is sixty-five, was manning the flight controls. Mike, sixty-four, sat co-pilot, offering counsel: “O.K., Tiger! Ride ’em, cowboy!” After touchdown, Don said, of their bumpy ride, “It’s like a washing machine!”
The Dwyer brothers grew up in Connecticut, working at their grandfather’s business, manufacturing graphite molds—“Imagine a coal mine in a machine shop!” Mike said. Now, through their firm, Guardian Jet, they sell new and secondhand airplanes to a clientele that Mike calls “the .00000001 per cent.” They boasted that, in 2022, the firm had bought and sold more than two billion dollars’ worth of aircraft. Don stepped onto the tarmac wearing a bespoke suit and a Ulysse Nardin watch, lugging a “Block Island Race Week” backpack. Mike wore Lululemon pants with a blue Brooks Brothers sports coat. In the last week, Don had flown to New York, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Washington, D.C., and Bonita Springs, Florida, where he owns a house; Mike jetted to Missoula, Montana, where he demoed a two-million-dollar secondhand helicopter for a wealthy entrepreneur. On weekend mornings, the brothers like to fly their families upriver to Poughkeepsie, for breakfast. “We’re goofy about aviation,” Mike said.
“I love to say that by the time someone gets an airplane they have everything else,” Don said. “Time is the one commodity you can’t manufacture.” Teterboro is a ten-minute helicopter ride from Manhattan. The brothers looked out at two dozen planes parked on the tarmac, a few of which they had bought and sold. “These are our children,” Mike said.
Don laughed. “Our job is to find you the good one,” he said.
“Our clients have no frame of reference to buy a ten-million-dollar airplane and be unhappy,” Mike said. “They buy a five-million-dollar boat, and it’s gorgeous. They live in multimillion-dollar homes that are incredible. They can’t imagine spending ten million dollars and being unhappy.”
Don said, “It’s all in the due diligence.” He went on, “I flew to Dubai to look at an airplane once that had absolutely stunning pictures. I went to open one of the maintenance panels, and sand just poured out. I was, like, ‘Rejection!’ ” He cautioned that costs (maintenance, staff, hangar space, fuel) add up. “Back of a cocktail napkin, you want an ultra-long-range jet? Three or four million a year!” he said.
The first thing the brothers showed the prospective buyer was the Guardian Jet Vault 4.0, an online tool—“Zillow for jets”—to help narrow down his choices. How about a super-midsize jet? Maybe the G280, manufactured by Gulfstream, a subsidiary of General Dynamics, which has also made nuclear submarines, M1 Abrams tanks, and the F-16? Two engines, two cabin zones, no flight attendant. Estimated value: eighteen million. “You could go to London, but you’re gonna have to stop on the way home,” Don said, almost apologetically. “Headwinds!”
Or perhaps an ultra-long-range plane? The men wandered into a hangar, slipped off their shoes—both brothers wore Ferragamo loafers—and climbed aboard a ten-year-old Gulfstream G650. It can fly just about anywhere in the world without needing a fuel stop. This one would go for forty million; a new model runs at least seventy-five. The brothers inspected the engines, maintenance panels, fuselage—“The paint is relatively new, the rivet heads are mostly still covered!” Don said—winglets, and cockpit, while the prospective buyer opened a few drawers in the forward galley: bottles of organic ketchup, small-batch hot sauce.
“Just think, you have a restaurant up here,” Don said. Mike plopped down in an oversized leather swivel chair, which flattens into a bed, in the main cabin. “They’ll withstand a sixteen-g crash,” he said, of the seats. Don admired them, too. “This looks like an original interior, but it’s not worn. Someone’s doing leather treatments here, I guarantee it!” he said. He looked down at the carpet (worn, weird pattern) and sighed. “We’re replacing this carpet.” The buyer agreed to mull it over, and the brothers climbed into their TBM 700 to fly home. ♦
