Print edition: 
During his 30 years of selling corporate aircraft around the world, Alex Kvassay crossed the Atlantic Ocean nearly 500 times and the Pacific more than 80 times.
Kvassay sold planes for Olive Ann Beech and Bill Lear to world leaders, business moguls and celebrities. More than once, he said, one of his sales enabled Learjet to make its payroll.
Selling airplanes internationally has some similarities to selling in the U.S., Kvassay told those gathered at the Wichita Aero Club meeting Wednesday, where he was the keynote speaker.
“The basics are the same,” he said. “You find a customer with the means, the need and the desire. (But) you still may have problems with his board of directors or his wife.”
Selling internationally offers its own challenges. For one, you travel thousands of miles to reach the prospect. You deal with certification issues, export licensing, language barriers and different customs, rules and currency. And politics come into play, Kvassay said.
In the U.S., a sales force must be well-versed in U.S. income taxes, financing and the cost of operating an aircraft. Those issues aren’t a factor in international sales.
In fact, international customers paid cash and would have been insulted if you talked about operating costs. That would be like asking someone who bought a Rolls Royce whether he could buy fuel for it, Kvassay said.
Kvassay, 85, came to the U.S. from Hungary in 1948, where he had finished studying law. He became a U.S. citizen through two years of service in the Army. He then came to Wichita for a job at Beech Aircraft before Lear recruited him as vice president of international marketing. He later became a partner with Duncan Aviation.
He retired in 1982. Kvassay has continued to travel the world, including landing on the North and South poles. Last year, he visited North Korea and Cuba.
Aircraft sales are about building relationships, he said. It takes months and sometimes years to cultivate a sale with a potential buyer.
“You don’t just walk into the office and say, ‘I want to sell you an airplane,’ ” Kvassay said.
That did happen once to him, however. During a five-hour layover in San Juan, Puerto Rico, he decided to visit the Bacardi Rum Co., where he and a friend were immediately received by the company’s president, Jorge Bosch. Bosch was a Cuban refugee, and it was a time when commercial airlines were being hijacked to Cuba.
Kvassay asked Bosch how much it would cost him to be released by Fidel Castro if he were hijacked. He said it would be more than the cost of a Learjet. Bosch bought one.
