Timing Is Everything. Even at 40,000 Feet.
I often tell a story in communications workshops about the difference between a good pickpocket and a great one. The answer is Timing!
Yesterday afternoon, Ireland’s new government jet a Dassault Falcon 6X touched down in Dublin. Built by Dassault Aviation, the aircraft carries a reported price tag of €45 – 50 million build on time within a year.
That headline number will do the rounds in media houses over the next few days.
But the real story as ever is in the timing and the context.
This arrival comes at a moment when Ireland is talking seriously about resilience, sovereignty, connectivity, and readiness.
Not just in defence terms, but in diplomacy, emergency response, and global engagement. Aircraft like this are not vanity projects. They are tools of statecraft, mobile offices, crisis platforms, and strategic assets that operate far beyond commercial schedules.
What’s often missed in the noise is that these deals are not just about the aircraft.
They typically include long-term maintenance, training, and support programmes anchoring highly skilled jobs and professionals, superb technical capability and excellent supplier relationships for years to come.
My Communications lesson?
If you talk only about the price, you lose the argument.
If you talk about purpose, timing, and capability, you frame the decision.
In public life, as in PR, perception isn’t accidental.
It arrives exactly when it means to.
