Spiegel Bits
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04/01/07, Gerald Traufetter, Super-Rich Propel Custom Jet Industry to New Heights, (Source).
02/01/07, Sebastian Ramspeck, Dolphin-Shaped Dildos From Deutschland, (Source).
04/01/07, Gerald Traufetter, Super-Rich Propel Custom Jet Industry to New Heights, (Back).
Outgrowing your Boeing 737? Why not upgrade to a Dreamliner -- or even an Airbus A380. That's what the mega-wealthy are doing.
Willie Gary occasionally drives by the modest shack in Pahokee, Florida, where he and his 10 siblings spent their childhood. It was a difficult time and his parents toiled for a living in the sugarcane fields; Gary says he has a "clear vision" of those days.
These days, though, his life looks quite a bit different. After his stroll down memory lane to the tougher days of his youth, Gary generally gets back behind the wheel of his Bentley and heads for the airport. There is never any need to hurry though. The jet he will be boarding, after all, will be his own.
Instead of the odors of sweat, airline food and dirty socks one often encounters in tourist class, the prevailing aroma on board his Boeing 737 is a blend of the more refined scents of fine leather, furniture polish and fresh flowers. Gary, a top attorney and multimillionaire, has no need for modesty. After all, he has earned his fortune.
Gary has spent $11 million of that fortune on furnishing his jet, which he calls "Wings of Justice II." As he writes on his Web site, the aircraft "includes an 18-karat gold sink," and a $1.2 million sound system. On board the "Wings of Justice," Gary can relax in bed, enjoy a gourmet meal prepared in a full-service kitchen or negotiate his next out-of-court settlement while seated at the plane's conference table. To make sure that his clients, often ordinary people he represents in actions for damages against major corporations, understand the reasoning behind all this luxury, Gary explains: "We can meet with people in Atlanta, Chicago and Carolina the same day and still be home for dinner."
Gary's flying law office isn't the only customized large jet flying through the skies these days. More and more large business jets, chartered or purchased outright, are rolling down the world's runways. From Abidjan to Zurich, there are already more than 300 of these specialized aircraft in the world today.
Flying palaces
The new breed of business jets are a far cry from the ordinary Cessnas amateur pilots use for their Sunday outings, nor are they the small corporate jets made by companies like Gulfstream, offering cramped accommodations for run-of-the-mill executives in their narrow fuselages. The aircraft today's super-rich are having converted into flying palaces are the large Airbus and Boeing models normally used in commercial aviation.
Many of the 7,000 employees at Lufthansa Technik in Hamburg owe their jobs to this premium segment of international aviation. An out-of-the-way hangar at Hamburg Airport is already booked solid throughout 2007 for the renovation of giant aircraft. "We're beginning to run out of space," complains Walter Heerdt, head of marketing and sales for Lufthansa Technik. He doesn't sound unhappy.
Heerdt operates in a "small but refined market" where large sums of money routinely change hands. A stripped down version of a passenger jet goes for around €150 million. Renovation can add tens of millions more -- with some fix-ups costing upwards of €50 million, depending on the customer's required "level of elegance," as it is referred to in the industry.
"We don't like to talk about prices," says Heerdt, adding that discretion is key to the business. Although he refuses to disclose the names of his customers, they quickly become an open secret to everyone in the industry whenever someone orders another customized aircraft. "The numbers are simply too small to be able to hide anything," says Heerdt.
Most of the customized luxury jets end up in the Arab oil states; sheikhs prefer jumbo jets or their slightly smaller cousins, the Boeing 767 or 777, which offer plenty of cargo space to accommodate stalls for their racehorses. But others around the world, like Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, also prefer the privacy of flying on their own jets. As do African potentates; when it comes to interior furnishings, they show a distinct preference for lots of gold and the skins of big cats.
€30,000 per hour
The Russian oligarchs' private plane of choice is the Boeing Business Jet, a 737 with an enlarged fuel tank, which allows them to travel from London to the most remote corners of Siberia. Roman Abramovich, for example, the owner of English football club FC Chelsea, used to be the proud owner of one of these jets. He has since upgraded to a Boeing 767.
Other customers include a motley assortment of self-made millionaires, heirs to family fortunes and actors like John Travolta, who had a runway more than a mile long built on the grounds of his Florida mansion. Last month Travolta traveled to Rome on his own Boeing 707 to attend the wedding of fellow actors Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.
In short, the world's elite has developed a deep aversion to flying on scheduled flights and all that it represents: sharing intimate space with strangers, including sleeping in close quarters and the dubious pleasure of experiencing other passengers' personal habits at close range. And increasingly, one doesn't have to be mega-rich to enjoy the pleasures of private flight. Luxury sub-jumbos are now available for charter with PrivatAir, a Geneva, Switzerland-based charter company, having recently added a Boeing 767 to its fleet, though even rentals can cost up to €30,000 per flight hour.
The global economy is fickle, says Briton Greg Thomas, the CEO of PrivatAir, using his finger to trace the ups and downs. "But it's all uphill when it comes to the big jets," he says. According to Thomas, there is a reliably growing market for chartering large aircraft at the "peak of the value pyramid."
Thomas cites the music industry to illustrate just how high up that pyramid the difference between the luxury jet haves and have nots is. According to a survey, says Thomas, only four pop bands or singers have the wherewithal to lease an aircraft on the order of a Boeing 767 -- the Rolling Stones and Madonna are both PrivatAir customers. The metal band Iron Maiden, on the other hand, wouldn't be able to afford the pleasure were lead singer Bruce Dickinson not a pilot himself. "I'm meeting him in Amsterdam next week," says Thomas. "He wants to fly the plane on their next tour."
Not surprisingly, PrivatAir places a premium on service. Whereas the cabin personnel, all attractive young women, can spend their free time debating the relative charms of celebrities like George Clooney or Brad Pitt, when they are working they are smiling, attentive and business-like. Victor Grove, who supervises their training, emphasizes that the service PrivatAir offers to its VVIPs, or Very Very Important Persons, must be "not just ok, but excellent."
Off-the-shelf luxury jet
But occasionally things do go wrong, and when they do a murmured "sorry" would be woefully inadequate. In such cases, Grove quickly reaches for his satellite phone while still on board, as he did recently when a wealthy British family chartered one of PrivatAir's two Boeings. As soon as he became aware of the problem, Grove says, he quickly put in a call to London's best florist and ordered a bouquet for 200 pounds (€297). "When the family arrived at home after the messed up flight," says Grove, "they found the bouquet at their door. They remained loyal to us and have continued flying with us, spending a total of 250,000 pounds (€371,000) to date."
Everyone in the industry agrees that there is plenty of money to go around. The demand among sheikhs is growing so fast that the region's first major business jet convention will be held this January in Dubai. But, as Lufthansa's Heerdt predicts, India and China also hold the potential to produce extremely affluent buyers.
Airbus is responding to this boom by collaborating with Lufthansa Technik. Demand is so great that the two companies have introduced the A318 Elite, which is essentially an off-the-rack luxury jet. Ordering an A318 Elite is much like buying a car, but in an altogether different price category. At a price tag of about $45 million, anyone can put together his very own dream machine from a list of options. Airbus delivered the first model to Lufthansa Technik's Hamburg facility in mid-December. Comlux, a Swiss charter company, is purchasing the finished product.
But custom production is the rule in Hamburg, with most of the work being done in Lufthansa's own buildings. As Director of International Communications for Lufthansa Technik, one of Aage Dünhaupt's responsibilities is to take potential customers and their agents on tours through the facility's long hallways.
The walls are decorated with slightly faded photographs of the interiors of luxury jets. "Outsiders really shouldn't be seeing this," says Dünhaupt, who is in his mid-30s. Whether he says this out of a need to protect the privacy of his customers (a sheikh, in this instance) or by way of apology for the poor quality of the images isn't quite clear.
Wood veneer from Borneo
The ornate furniture inside the sheikh's jet is covered with gray marble, an otherwise uncommon material in aircraft construction. A pattern of red roses is woven into the carpeting. "People happen to have different tastes," says Dünhaupt diplomatically.
Whatever the taste, the workmanship must be "100 percent precise." No one is more aware of this than master carpenter Kathrin Impelmann, 34, whose firm builds the furnishings for Lufthansa Technik's luxury jets. To satisfy weight requirements, the walls of Impelmann's creations are normally made of resin composite. But if a customer wants too much electronic equipment installed, which could make the aircraft too heavy, she uses carbon fiber. "It's even lighter," says Impelmann.
All that plastic eventually disappears behind high-quality veneers. "Nothing should be reminiscent of the contemptible synthetic gray of commercial aircraft," says Impelmann, who wears her blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. To satisfy the demands of fastidious customers, she'll even travel to Canada to hand-select the trees that will be used to produce the bird's eye maple she sometimes uses as a veneer. Amboyna veneer is currently even more popular. The wood comes from the knots of a tree that grows on the Southeast Asian island of Borneo. The pricy veneer costs $900 per square meter (about $84 per square foot), and she needs 10,000 square meters for a jumbo jet, says Impelmann.
Despite Impelmann's attention to detail, problems arise here and there. At a recent customer inspection of her furniture pieces, she says, "the sheikh's representative pointed in horror to what he called 'devil's scratches' in the grain of the veneer. We had to redo everything."
Taking cultural and religious sentiments into account is an essential element of Impelmann's job. This includes installing GPS in prayer rooms so that the Muslim faithful can be certain that they are in fact praying toward Mecca.
She is occasionally asked to incorporate an operating room into her carpentry work, so that an ailing monarch could undergo heart surgery while on board, if necessary. Another customer ordered a chandelier -- a somewhat difficult request for the technicians to honor given the requirement that it be able to withstand up to nine G's of force. Impelmann says she is no longer shocked by customers' quirks.
Andrew Winch is the man responsible for some of the challenges Impelmann faces. The London-based designer builds luxury yachts bound for marinas from Monaco to Miami. Winch's work on the yachts of well-to-do clients often translates into aviation contracts. "When people are happy with my work," he says, "they hire me to work on their jets."
Servants sit downstairs
Winch's luxury version of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner comes complete with Alcantara composite material, precious woods and cream-colored upholstery. The Dreamliner, says Winch, is ideal for those who are slowly outgrowing their 737 private jets. "The 787 has more space, and yet it is economical to maintain," he says.
But as far as Winch is concerned, the new Airbus A380 is "probably the most valuable of all properties." Those who opt for this model can be certain that no one will be able to outdo them with an even larger aircraft. In anticipation of a market for a luxury version of the A380, Winch and Lufthansa Technik are developing a study for the aerospace giant. "Six hundred square meters (about 6,450 square feet) of living space," says Lufthansa executive Heerdt, clicking his tongue, "now that's something with which we can really produce something special."
Heerdt and Winch are particularly excited about a unique feature of the A380: its contiguous upper deck. The aircraft's two separate decks allow designers to establish the oh-so-important hierarchy that disappeared with the demise of the big passenger steamers. The upper deck will feature cabins for "senior VIPs," while "junior VIPs," together with their entourage of nannies, make-up artists, chefs and drivers, will be seated downstairs in the fuselage.
Three potential buyers of customized A380s are already in talks with designer Winch and Lufthansa Technik. Who can blame them, asks Winch? After all, he adds, this aircraft satisfies one of their deepest desires. "Everyone wants to be able to see both wingtips while lying in bed."
02/01/07, Sebastian Ramspeck, Dolphin-Shaped Dildos From Deutschland, (Back).
German enterpreneur Dirk Bauer started making dolphin-shaped dildos in his kitchen a few years ago and never looked back. His company churns out upmarket sex toys that adorn the shelves of department stores and boutiques around the world. The trick, it seems, is to make sure the products don't look too much like penises.
Dirk Bauer should really have won a prize for entrepreneurship by now. He says he started out with capital of just €25 and no loans to speak of, and within just a few years transformed his company into a European market leader.
His products are largely hand-made in the northern city of Bremen. They're expensive but in strong demand around the world. He has satisfied customers in Paris, New York, Buenos Aires and Taipei.
But Germany's corporate establishment is unlikely to give Bauer any enterprise awards. That's because his company Fun Factory GmbH makes dildos and vibrators. "I've often been ask 'How can you do something like that?'" says Bauer. But his tenacity has paid off.
His workshop churns out 4,000 sex toys a day. Sales have surged from €5 million to €13.5 million since 2004. and the workforce has more than doubled in that period. He is currently installing a conveyor belt into his factory to boost output. "There's simply no other way to satisfy demand," says Bauer.
The luxury vibrators don't just look good, they're also of much better quality than cheap products from the Far East, says Nicole Wellems, who runs an online erotic store for women which predominantly sells Fun Factory dildos. "Bauer is a trendsetter," gushes Otto Lindemann, head of the world's biggest erotic products group, Beate Uhse AG. Two years ago the sex giant based in Flensburg, northern Germany, bought a 25 percent stake in Fun Factory.
It's been a success story that originated from sheer necessity. In 1995, Bauer's then partner opened an erotic store for women in Bremen. The problem was that the flesh-colored cheap imitation penises didn't sell and the store almost went bust.
Bauer, an electrical engineer by trade, bought some silicone for €25 and went about fashioning penguin and dolphin-shaped dildos in his kitchen with a friend. "The main thing was that it wasn't penis-shaped," recalls Bauer.
1.2 watt engines
The phallic Flipper has become something of a cult product among dildo aficionados. Bauer is now Chief Executive Officer of a company that has a subsidiary in the US and plans to open further branches in Spain and Japan.
With the traditional German love of technology, Bauer enthuses about the high-tech refinements of his products -- take the 1.2 watt electric motors used in the GII models. Or the ergonomic controls, custom-made by a specialist in eastern Germany.
Bauer is following the erotic industry's trend towards lifestyle and luxury. Fun Factory supplies Paris department store Le Printemps and several upmarket boutiques in New York, for example.
The company has expanded its range to include cosmetics, card games and board games. But while Bauer has no trouble finding outlets in the US, France and Spain, he finds it hard to get German upmarket retailers excited about his products. "Many retailers put the phone down on me as soon as they hear the word 'erotic'," he says.
Helga Albrecht, president of the Federation of German Midwives, fondly recalls a congress in 2004 at which Fun Factory set up a sales stand. "The stand was a big hit, there were long queues of midwives." After all, the "appealing products" helped women strengthen their pelvic floors after pregnancy, she said.
Many female customers send in product feedback by email. "I'm astonished at how openly people talk about themselves," says Bauer. "Sometimes it's just too much information."
02/01/07, Sebastian Ramspeck, Dolphin-Shaped Dildos From Deutschland, (Source).
04/01/07, Gerald Traufetter, Super-Rich Propel Custom Jet Industry to New Heights, (Back).
Outgrowing your Boeing 737? Why not upgrade to a Dreamliner -- or even an Airbus A380. That's what the mega-wealthy are doing.
Willie Gary occasionally drives by the modest shack in Pahokee, Florida, where he and his 10 siblings spent their childhood. It was a difficult time and his parents toiled for a living in the sugarcane fields; Gary says he has a "clear vision" of those days.
These days, though, his life looks quite a bit different. After his stroll down memory lane to the tougher days of his youth, Gary generally gets back behind the wheel of his Bentley and heads for the airport. There is never any need to hurry though. The jet he will be boarding, after all, will be his own.
Instead of the odors of sweat, airline food and dirty socks one often encounters in tourist class, the prevailing aroma on board his Boeing 737 is a blend of the more refined scents of fine leather, furniture polish and fresh flowers. Gary, a top attorney and multimillionaire, has no need for modesty. After all, he has earned his fortune.
Gary has spent $11 million of that fortune on furnishing his jet, which he calls "Wings of Justice II." As he writes on his Web site, the aircraft "includes an 18-karat gold sink," and a $1.2 million sound system. On board the "Wings of Justice," Gary can relax in bed, enjoy a gourmet meal prepared in a full-service kitchen or negotiate his next out-of-court settlement while seated at the plane's conference table. To make sure that his clients, often ordinary people he represents in actions for damages against major corporations, understand the reasoning behind all this luxury, Gary explains: "We can meet with people in Atlanta, Chicago and Carolina the same day and still be home for dinner."
Gary's flying law office isn't the only customized large jet flying through the skies these days. More and more large business jets, chartered or purchased outright, are rolling down the world's runways. From Abidjan to Zurich, there are already more than 300 of these specialized aircraft in the world today.
Flying palaces
The new breed of business jets are a far cry from the ordinary Cessnas amateur pilots use for their Sunday outings, nor are they the small corporate jets made by companies like Gulfstream, offering cramped accommodations for run-of-the-mill executives in their narrow fuselages. The aircraft today's super-rich are having converted into flying palaces are the large Airbus and Boeing models normally used in commercial aviation.
Many of the 7,000 employees at Lufthansa Technik in Hamburg owe their jobs to this premium segment of international aviation. An out-of-the-way hangar at Hamburg Airport is already booked solid throughout 2007 for the renovation of giant aircraft. "We're beginning to run out of space," complains Walter Heerdt, head of marketing and sales for Lufthansa Technik. He doesn't sound unhappy.
Heerdt operates in a "small but refined market" where large sums of money routinely change hands. A stripped down version of a passenger jet goes for around €150 million. Renovation can add tens of millions more -- with some fix-ups costing upwards of €50 million, depending on the customer's required "level of elegance," as it is referred to in the industry.
"We don't like to talk about prices," says Heerdt, adding that discretion is key to the business. Although he refuses to disclose the names of his customers, they quickly become an open secret to everyone in the industry whenever someone orders another customized aircraft. "The numbers are simply too small to be able to hide anything," says Heerdt.
Most of the customized luxury jets end up in the Arab oil states; sheikhs prefer jumbo jets or their slightly smaller cousins, the Boeing 767 or 777, which offer plenty of cargo space to accommodate stalls for their racehorses. But others around the world, like Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, also prefer the privacy of flying on their own jets. As do African potentates; when it comes to interior furnishings, they show a distinct preference for lots of gold and the skins of big cats.
€30,000 per hour
The Russian oligarchs' private plane of choice is the Boeing Business Jet, a 737 with an enlarged fuel tank, which allows them to travel from London to the most remote corners of Siberia. Roman Abramovich, for example, the owner of English football club FC Chelsea, used to be the proud owner of one of these jets. He has since upgraded to a Boeing 767.
Other customers include a motley assortment of self-made millionaires, heirs to family fortunes and actors like John Travolta, who had a runway more than a mile long built on the grounds of his Florida mansion. Last month Travolta traveled to Rome on his own Boeing 707 to attend the wedding of fellow actors Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.
In short, the world's elite has developed a deep aversion to flying on scheduled flights and all that it represents: sharing intimate space with strangers, including sleeping in close quarters and the dubious pleasure of experiencing other passengers' personal habits at close range. And increasingly, one doesn't have to be mega-rich to enjoy the pleasures of private flight. Luxury sub-jumbos are now available for charter with PrivatAir, a Geneva, Switzerland-based charter company, having recently added a Boeing 767 to its fleet, though even rentals can cost up to €30,000 per flight hour.
The global economy is fickle, says Briton Greg Thomas, the CEO of PrivatAir, using his finger to trace the ups and downs. "But it's all uphill when it comes to the big jets," he says. According to Thomas, there is a reliably growing market for chartering large aircraft at the "peak of the value pyramid."
Thomas cites the music industry to illustrate just how high up that pyramid the difference between the luxury jet haves and have nots is. According to a survey, says Thomas, only four pop bands or singers have the wherewithal to lease an aircraft on the order of a Boeing 767 -- the Rolling Stones and Madonna are both PrivatAir customers. The metal band Iron Maiden, on the other hand, wouldn't be able to afford the pleasure were lead singer Bruce Dickinson not a pilot himself. "I'm meeting him in Amsterdam next week," says Thomas. "He wants to fly the plane on their next tour."
Not surprisingly, PrivatAir places a premium on service. Whereas the cabin personnel, all attractive young women, can spend their free time debating the relative charms of celebrities like George Clooney or Brad Pitt, when they are working they are smiling, attentive and business-like. Victor Grove, who supervises their training, emphasizes that the service PrivatAir offers to its VVIPs, or Very Very Important Persons, must be "not just ok, but excellent."
Off-the-shelf luxury jet
But occasionally things do go wrong, and when they do a murmured "sorry" would be woefully inadequate. In such cases, Grove quickly reaches for his satellite phone while still on board, as he did recently when a wealthy British family chartered one of PrivatAir's two Boeings. As soon as he became aware of the problem, Grove says, he quickly put in a call to London's best florist and ordered a bouquet for 200 pounds (€297). "When the family arrived at home after the messed up flight," says Grove, "they found the bouquet at their door. They remained loyal to us and have continued flying with us, spending a total of 250,000 pounds (€371,000) to date."
Everyone in the industry agrees that there is plenty of money to go around. The demand among sheikhs is growing so fast that the region's first major business jet convention will be held this January in Dubai. But, as Lufthansa's Heerdt predicts, India and China also hold the potential to produce extremely affluent buyers.
Airbus is responding to this boom by collaborating with Lufthansa Technik. Demand is so great that the two companies have introduced the A318 Elite, which is essentially an off-the-rack luxury jet. Ordering an A318 Elite is much like buying a car, but in an altogether different price category. At a price tag of about $45 million, anyone can put together his very own dream machine from a list of options. Airbus delivered the first model to Lufthansa Technik's Hamburg facility in mid-December. Comlux, a Swiss charter company, is purchasing the finished product.
But custom production is the rule in Hamburg, with most of the work being done in Lufthansa's own buildings. As Director of International Communications for Lufthansa Technik, one of Aage Dünhaupt's responsibilities is to take potential customers and their agents on tours through the facility's long hallways.
The walls are decorated with slightly faded photographs of the interiors of luxury jets. "Outsiders really shouldn't be seeing this," says Dünhaupt, who is in his mid-30s. Whether he says this out of a need to protect the privacy of his customers (a sheikh, in this instance) or by way of apology for the poor quality of the images isn't quite clear.
Wood veneer from Borneo
The ornate furniture inside the sheikh's jet is covered with gray marble, an otherwise uncommon material in aircraft construction. A pattern of red roses is woven into the carpeting. "People happen to have different tastes," says Dünhaupt diplomatically.
Whatever the taste, the workmanship must be "100 percent precise." No one is more aware of this than master carpenter Kathrin Impelmann, 34, whose firm builds the furnishings for Lufthansa Technik's luxury jets. To satisfy weight requirements, the walls of Impelmann's creations are normally made of resin composite. But if a customer wants too much electronic equipment installed, which could make the aircraft too heavy, she uses carbon fiber. "It's even lighter," says Impelmann.
All that plastic eventually disappears behind high-quality veneers. "Nothing should be reminiscent of the contemptible synthetic gray of commercial aircraft," says Impelmann, who wears her blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. To satisfy the demands of fastidious customers, she'll even travel to Canada to hand-select the trees that will be used to produce the bird's eye maple she sometimes uses as a veneer. Amboyna veneer is currently even more popular. The wood comes from the knots of a tree that grows on the Southeast Asian island of Borneo. The pricy veneer costs $900 per square meter (about $84 per square foot), and she needs 10,000 square meters for a jumbo jet, says Impelmann.
Despite Impelmann's attention to detail, problems arise here and there. At a recent customer inspection of her furniture pieces, she says, "the sheikh's representative pointed in horror to what he called 'devil's scratches' in the grain of the veneer. We had to redo everything."
Taking cultural and religious sentiments into account is an essential element of Impelmann's job. This includes installing GPS in prayer rooms so that the Muslim faithful can be certain that they are in fact praying toward Mecca.
She is occasionally asked to incorporate an operating room into her carpentry work, so that an ailing monarch could undergo heart surgery while on board, if necessary. Another customer ordered a chandelier -- a somewhat difficult request for the technicians to honor given the requirement that it be able to withstand up to nine G's of force. Impelmann says she is no longer shocked by customers' quirks.
Andrew Winch is the man responsible for some of the challenges Impelmann faces. The London-based designer builds luxury yachts bound for marinas from Monaco to Miami. Winch's work on the yachts of well-to-do clients often translates into aviation contracts. "When people are happy with my work," he says, "they hire me to work on their jets."
Servants sit downstairs
Winch's luxury version of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner comes complete with Alcantara composite material, precious woods and cream-colored upholstery. The Dreamliner, says Winch, is ideal for those who are slowly outgrowing their 737 private jets. "The 787 has more space, and yet it is economical to maintain," he says.
But as far as Winch is concerned, the new Airbus A380 is "probably the most valuable of all properties." Those who opt for this model can be certain that no one will be able to outdo them with an even larger aircraft. In anticipation of a market for a luxury version of the A380, Winch and Lufthansa Technik are developing a study for the aerospace giant. "Six hundred square meters (about 6,450 square feet) of living space," says Lufthansa executive Heerdt, clicking his tongue, "now that's something with which we can really produce something special."
Heerdt and Winch are particularly excited about a unique feature of the A380: its contiguous upper deck. The aircraft's two separate decks allow designers to establish the oh-so-important hierarchy that disappeared with the demise of the big passenger steamers. The upper deck will feature cabins for "senior VIPs," while "junior VIPs," together with their entourage of nannies, make-up artists, chefs and drivers, will be seated downstairs in the fuselage.
Three potential buyers of customized A380s are already in talks with designer Winch and Lufthansa Technik. Who can blame them, asks Winch? After all, he adds, this aircraft satisfies one of their deepest desires. "Everyone wants to be able to see both wingtips while lying in bed."
02/01/07, Sebastian Ramspeck, Dolphin-Shaped Dildos From Deutschland, (Back).
German enterpreneur Dirk Bauer started making dolphin-shaped dildos in his kitchen a few years ago and never looked back. His company churns out upmarket sex toys that adorn the shelves of department stores and boutiques around the world. The trick, it seems, is to make sure the products don't look too much like penises.
Dirk Bauer should really have won a prize for entrepreneurship by now. He says he started out with capital of just €25 and no loans to speak of, and within just a few years transformed his company into a European market leader.
His products are largely hand-made in the northern city of Bremen. They're expensive but in strong demand around the world. He has satisfied customers in Paris, New York, Buenos Aires and Taipei.
But Germany's corporate establishment is unlikely to give Bauer any enterprise awards. That's because his company Fun Factory GmbH makes dildos and vibrators. "I've often been ask 'How can you do something like that?'" says Bauer. But his tenacity has paid off.
His workshop churns out 4,000 sex toys a day. Sales have surged from €5 million to €13.5 million since 2004. and the workforce has more than doubled in that period. He is currently installing a conveyor belt into his factory to boost output. "There's simply no other way to satisfy demand," says Bauer.
The luxury vibrators don't just look good, they're also of much better quality than cheap products from the Far East, says Nicole Wellems, who runs an online erotic store for women which predominantly sells Fun Factory dildos. "Bauer is a trendsetter," gushes Otto Lindemann, head of the world's biggest erotic products group, Beate Uhse AG. Two years ago the sex giant based in Flensburg, northern Germany, bought a 25 percent stake in Fun Factory.
It's been a success story that originated from sheer necessity. In 1995, Bauer's then partner opened an erotic store for women in Bremen. The problem was that the flesh-colored cheap imitation penises didn't sell and the store almost went bust.
Bauer, an electrical engineer by trade, bought some silicone for €25 and went about fashioning penguin and dolphin-shaped dildos in his kitchen with a friend. "The main thing was that it wasn't penis-shaped," recalls Bauer.
1.2 watt engines
The phallic Flipper has become something of a cult product among dildo aficionados. Bauer is now Chief Executive Officer of a company that has a subsidiary in the US and plans to open further branches in Spain and Japan.
With the traditional German love of technology, Bauer enthuses about the high-tech refinements of his products -- take the 1.2 watt electric motors used in the GII models. Or the ergonomic controls, custom-made by a specialist in eastern Germany.
Bauer is following the erotic industry's trend towards lifestyle and luxury. Fun Factory supplies Paris department store Le Printemps and several upmarket boutiques in New York, for example.
The company has expanded its range to include cosmetics, card games and board games. But while Bauer has no trouble finding outlets in the US, France and Spain, he finds it hard to get German upmarket retailers excited about his products. "Many retailers put the phone down on me as soon as they hear the word 'erotic'," he says.
Helga Albrecht, president of the Federation of German Midwives, fondly recalls a congress in 2004 at which Fun Factory set up a sales stand. "The stand was a big hit, there were long queues of midwives." After all, the "appealing products" helped women strengthen their pelvic floors after pregnancy, she said.
Many female customers send in product feedback by email. "I'm astonished at how openly people talk about themselves," says Bauer. "Sometimes it's just too much information."
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