SAVANNAH, Georgia—Here outside Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport (KSAV), it’s Gulfstream Aerospace as far as the eye can see.
When Mark Burns joined Gulfstream as an engineer in 1983, the company had about 100 employees. The G-IV—which would go on to become one of the world’s most popular business jets—had only just been conceived.
Now, as company president, Burns leads a global team comprising more than 20,000 employees. Nearly two-thirds of them work in Savannah and its suburbs, where the company has become a ubiquitous presence—and the city’s largest private employer.
“We’ll continue to grow here in Savannah,” Burns told reporters last week at the company’s annual gathering at its headquarters. “It is our home.”
Gulfstream is also Georgia’s largest manufacturer. Its production, completions, and customer support service facilities combined occupy more than 4 million square feet in Savannah.
Per Burns, the company has about 3,300 aircraft in service. It has delivered more than 350 G500 and G600 models, introduced in 2018 and 2019, respectively. It delivered its 50th G700 in May, about one year after certification. The G800—the world’s longest-range business jet—entered service in August, replacing the Collier Trophy-winning G650.
The G400, which awaits certification, is undergoing flight testing. This week, Gulfstream unveiled the newest member of its next-generation fleet of ultra-long-range twin-engines—the G300.
“Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia are all continuing to grow,” said Burns. “We’re fortunate that our brand is really a global brand now.”
The super-midsize G300 will be the sixth model Gulfstream has introduced in just over a decade. According to Lor Izzard, senior vice president of customer support, that investment in aircraft is being “matched” by investments in new facilities, technologies, and personnel.
Scaling Up
John Kenan, Gulfstream’s senior vice president of operations, said the company expects to make about 150 global deliveries in 2025. The bulk of them come out of Savannah, where it owns more than 3 million square feet of manufacturing and completion facilities for the G400 through G800.
In December, Gulfstream produced its thousandth wing in Savannah. Kenan gave FLYING a tour of the wing production facility, which he said churns out one every 2.5 manufacturing days. Adjacent to that site is the building that produces fuselages for the G500 and G600, as well as the G400 following a 142,000-square-foot expansion in 2023. The G700 and G800 fuselages are produced in separate hubs nearby.
Gulfstream G400 G500 G600 fuselage
As the manufacturing operation has exploded, Gulfstream gave itself the ability to be flexible to shifts in demand. The G700 production line, for example, could be used to produce the G800—and vice versa—because the manufacturing processes are so similar.
“We’ve invested heavily in new design fixturing and tooling, which actually was created here in Savannah with our own research and development center,” Kenan said. “And how we manufacture aircraft is unique to the rest of the industry.”
The G300, like the G280 it will replace, is being built and tested in the Middle East in partnership with Israel Aerospace Industries. But research and development for the model is based in Savannah, where nearly 2,600 Gulfstream engineers work with state-of-the-art laboratories and simulators.
At Your Service
More aircraft in service means more resources are required to service the aircraft. By that token, Gulfstream has also invested heavily in customer support services—to the tune of $620 million over 10 years.
In Savannah, the company’s customer support footprint covers more than 1.1 million square feet. Its 10 hangars, occupying more than 550,000 square feet, can accommodate 85 aircraft at a time. These facilities handle modifications, inspections, and repairs for fuselages, flight controls, engines, wings, hydraulics, wheels, and landing gear, as well as avionics upgrades and aircraft redesign. Also on-site is a fuel farm that can hold up to 30,000 gallons of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
Izzard said about 3 in 5 of the company’s 5,000 customer support personnel work in Savannah. He added that Gulfstream has invested more in personnel training over the past 12 months than in its entire history.
Izzard walked FLYING through the company’s 367,000-square-foot Service Center East, which was expanded in July 2024. It has poured more than $150 million into the facility, which has two hangars each capable of servicing up to 13 aircraft at once. The building handles both scheduled maintenance and drop-ins for the G300 through G800. Gulfstream in September, for instance, installed its hundredth SpaceX Starlink system, which Izzard said is a particularly popular request.
Combined with its main Savannah customer support campus, now known as Service Center West, the facilities represent the largest service footprint in business aviation, Gulfstream said.
Gulfstream’s Georgia Roots
With customers around the world, Gulfstream has invested heavily beyond Savannah.
Its support network includes MRO facilities in California, Wisconsin, Texas, Florida, and the U.K. In January, it opened a new, 225,000-square-foot customer support and MRO center at Mesa Gateway Airport (KIWA) in Arizona, from which it uses a fleet of Pilatus PC-12s to deliver spare parts to the West Coast.
The company has also expanded its Field and Airborne Support Teams (FAST), which travel around the world to provide 24/7 on-site support. As of April, it had more than 150 FAST technicians across 24 bases worldwide. According to Izzard, the team has grown 40 percent in the past 18 months.
But Gulfstream has no plans to dig up its roots in Georgia, which it has called home for nearly 60 years.
Burns estimated that the company has hired about 5,000 Savannah personnel since 2016. It maintains partnerships with high schools, colleges, and universities to create a pipeline of local talent. Its Savannah Technical Training Center, for example, hosted more than 140,000 hours of training for about 2,000 new employees in 2024 alone.
“This community has been good for Gulfstream,” Burns said. “We have invested significantly in the education system here, and it has paid off in dividends.”
There could be more to come. With the G400 approaching certification and scaled production—and the G300 waiting in the wings—Gulfstream may need to spend even more on Savannah.
https://www.flyingmag.com/gulfstream-is-woven-into-the-fabric-of-savannah