By Gabriel Araujo

SAO PAULO Dassault Aviation is confident it will be able to meet its target to deliver 35 Falcon business jets in 2023, but its order backlog is not likely to expand this year as much as it did in 2022, an executive said in an interview.

Private aviation boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic as wealthy travelers sought to reduce exposure to the coronavirus, helping business jet makers post strong figures.

Dassault added 64 Falcon orders to its backlog in 2022, up 25.5% from the year before. Since then, it saw signs of a cooling market, but things are starting to heat up again.

"We noticed a little slowdown at the end of last year, still in place this year as the first half was not crazy on our side," Dassault's vice president of civil aircraft, Carlos Brana, told Reuters at Sao Paulo's LABACE airshow late Wednesday afternoon.

"But now we see little turbulences - meaning, an improvement - compared to what we saw in the first few months," he said.

"I'm not saying that we'll have the same figures as last year. I think that would be very optimistic, but we see the market coming back again. Slowly, but coming back."

Dassault is a major player in the super mid-size, large and long-range categories of business jets, with products such as the Falcons 2000 and 8X that it showcased in Sao Paulo.

Its newest developments include the Falcon 6X, which it hopes will be certified within weeks, and the 10X, a "game changer" for which it expects certification in 2025.

Brana highlighted a wave of new customers in the business jet market as a result of the pandemic, saying that about 20% of Falcon buyers last year were first-time purchasers of a private aircraft.

Dassault delivered 32 Falcon aircraft in 2022 and aims for 35 this year, as it works to overcome supply-chain issues affecting the sector in recent years.

"We are doing our best with the supply chain constraints," Brana said. "We're still targeting the 35."

(Reporting by Gabriel Araujo; Editing by Brad Haynes and Leslie Adler)