A Bombardier media event in December 2025 kicked off a whistle-stop Global 8000 promotional tour and provided your editor with an opportunity to see business aviation with fresh eyes
There is no other industry quite like aviation, while the tiny niche within it occupied by business and VIP aviation is more remarkable still. Whether you are a passenger, owner, pilot, dispatcher, mechanic or someone filling any of the myriad other roles in business aviation, sometimes it is worth stepping back from the everyday, the better to appreciate just how lucky we are to be involved in this unique industry.
But such opportunities are rare. There is always a jet to despatch, a video call to make or a deadline to meet. Which is why Bombardier’s pre-Christmas 2025 invitation to a media event at Farnborough Airport was so welcome. Since it was intended for journalists working primarily on lifestyle, technology and travel titles, it provided a different, outsider’s perspective on business aviation and the Global 8000. Seeing ‘our’ world through the eyes of people for whom business aviation is usually just a jet glimpsed through an airport perimeter fence was as invigorating as it was humbling.
A carefully crafted celebration of the first Global 8000 delivery, the event’s emphasis was on Bombardier’s repositioning as a luxury brand as well as a demonstration of the convenience and speed of business jet travel, and the passenger wellbeing achieved not only through the Global’s technology and performance, but also carefully chosen nutrition and relaxation techniques. As someone whose business aviation experience is always through invitation, the day also allowed a stark comparison between joining the day’s first departure to London from a frigid East Anglian railway station and enjoying breakfast prepared and served by a Michelin-starred chef on board a Global parked inside a hangar at the UK’s most historic airport. This is an extraordinary business indeed.
Car to jet
Cars collected the invitees from addresses around London, the idea being to illustrate how a passenger could be moved discreetly and privately directly to the airport and onto the aircraft. In my case, the Aston Martin DB11 Vantage Volante waiting kerbside at London St Pancras International stood out starkly among the taxis and early morning delivery vans jostling for space outside the station. All the sweeter for the Aston’s cosseting interior, the easy journey to Farnborough owed more to the unexpectedly light traffic than the car’s unexplored performance. As the small fleet of exotic vehicles arrived at Farnborough, the emphasis on luxury and performance was outwardly obvious, but the convenience of the 30-second walk from car to jet less so until after the fact.
Bombardier had handed the keys for the first Global 8000 to Canadian entrepreneur Patrick Dovigi at its Aircraft Assembly Centre in Mississauga, Ontario, on 8 December 2025. Three days later, the company’s marketing team was still buzzing from the delivery event, especially after Dovigi’s generous enthusiasm and praise for the aircraft.
Their excitement was palpable as we took our breakfast places aboard the aircraft, despite the early arrival time – it was still only just 8am. Although Stephen McCullough, then Bombardier’s Senior Vice President Engineering & Product Development, and now Executive Vice President, Engineering, Product Development and Bombardier Defense, was onboard, the morning was dedicated to a discussion of the wellbeing benefits of the Global 8000 cabin and how they can be made to work alongside nutrition and quality rest to help passengers arrive healthy and refreshed even at the extremes of the aircraft’s 17-hour endurance.
Functional Medicine Practitioner Rose Ferguson delivered key advice for optimising inflight wellness, reinforcing Bombardier’s belief that the best inflight experience comes from a combination of elements – technological and otherwise. She recommended choosing foods containing anti-inflammatory ingredients to reduce gut inflammation, aid digestion and support the microbiome, as well as paying careful attention to hydration, easy steps that help reduce the physiological stresses of flying.
Ferguson and Michelin-starred chef and international restaurateur Tom Aikens had created a breakfast menu ideally suited to long-range flying. While adhering to Ferguson’s edicts on hydration and anti-inflammatory ingredients, it also delivered ‘slow-burn’ nutrition, releasing energy to the body gradually and preventing sugar spikes. Indeed, Aikens and his team served a varied, comprehensive and filling menu on which the soft-boiled quail eggs, nori rolls and seasonal winter compote were standout items. Fresh as a new-picked strawberry, the nori rolls were divine, while Aikens was happy to expound on the virtues of the apple and fig compote but would not be drawn on the finer points of its signature buckwheat granola topping.
Cool factors
Bombardier’s representatives were considerably less reticent on details of the aircraft’s cabin. Much has been written about the company’s Nuage seat, yet it is worth devoting just a few more words to it. To say that it is among the most comfortable business jet passenger seats your correspondent has sampled is to do Nuage a disservice. A Nuage seat goes beyond comfort; it embraces, relaxes and supports. Recline it and the seat pan tilts, ensuring lower back support throughout the process. Choose to move it, to explore its functionality, and after a few seconds’ practice, the operation of a couple of controls has the seat moving effortlessly fore and aft, from side to side, and swinging into the aisle.
The seat, or at least the carefully selected leather in which it is upholstered, also plays a role in Bombardier’s luxury brand promotion. The company has commissioned a range of bags and accessories from Canada’s WANT Les Essentiels, each subtly embossed with Bombardier’s ‘Mach’ logo. Designed primarily as customer gifts, the items allow owners to carry a reminder of their Global with them, while reminding future owners of the experience to come.
The intricacies of the engineering behind the Global 8000’s performance were generally less important to the gathered audience than their results, although McCullough was able to add to Ferguson’s wisdom, explaining that thanks to the Global 8000’s 2,691ft cabin altitude at 41,000ft, the body feels as it would at the top of the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai even though the aircraft is cruising at 45,000ft. Later, during an external tour of the jet, he noted the outside-opening cargo door that avoids encroaching on hold space, and described the wing, designed under his leadership and responsible for much of the big Globals’ high- and low-speed performance capabilities, and smooth ride.
Bombardier representatives have often delighted in demonstrating the flexibility of the Global wing in the past, but it was a real pleasure to witness the man who knows it best reaching up to ‘flex the wing’, perhaps with a little more vigour than is customary. As the group dispersed for photographs and interviews, I took the opportunity to spend a few minutes chatting with McCullough. We’ve met before and soon picked up on aviation themes we had explored in the past, before he noticed that the wing was still oscillating from his earlier push. As though seeing it for the first time, he exclaimed: “Look at that! It’s still moving. That’s so cool.”
The day was about luxury branding, the ultimate in high-performance commercial flight, convenience, wellbeing and world-class nutrition, but McCullough summed up the perspective we might get if we step away from the everyday of business aviation just for a moment and look back through another’s eyes – it really is so cool.