Innovation in the business-aviation sector takes many forms. Just ask Steve Varsano. After a spell in the private-equity industry, the New Yorker returned to his first love: selling private jets. But, rather than set up an agency online and work from home, Varsano opened a physical shop in London. The most obvious question is: why.

“The whole rationale for this kind of a concept is face-to-face relationship-building,” Varsano says, seated in a full-size Business Jet cabin in The Jet Business’s new store, located less than a mile from the store's previous Mayfair location.

He was shocked when he began selling jets that sellers and buyers almost never met. “I would try, myself, to really go and meet the clients,” he says. Back then, in the 1980s, that was easy: the majority of the business was in the U.S. But in today’s marketplace, where clients could be almost anywhere in the world, he thought it may work better if they came to him.

The Jet Business’s premises is part showroom and part consultancy, but with the personal and bespoke attention to detail of a high-end tailor. Visitors sit with Varsano before a video wall, onto which he can project life-size cabin interiors, floor plans and cross-sections of the jets they are considering buying.

“There were three things we wanted to make sure we give them when they walked in the store,” he says. “One was, we wanted to have an environment that was a combination of their home, their office and their airplane – so a typical corporate executive or a high-net-worth person walks in and they feel at home.

“Second, we have really great technology that we’ve developed in-house,” he adds. “We take them through, in a very detailed way, how to select the right airplane for them. And the third leg of the stool is the information that goes into the technology: so we have a full staff of research and sales people who are calling every owner of every jet in the super-mid-size bracket and up, who we try to talk to every three months to see who’s buying, who’s selling, and what’s for sale.”

The Jet Business will not be exhibiting at EBACE this year, but Varsano and members of his team will be at the show.

“Sometimes you’re more apt to find a buyer than a seller at these shows,” he says. “We’re struggling more to find sellers than buyers.”