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Dassault Aviation pulled the cover off its newest corporate jet this month at its production hall in Bordeaux Merignac, and among the guests placed in the front row was Mahamadou Bonkoungou, the Burkinabe construction magnate who has spent the last several years quietly building an aviation business alongside his better known infrastructure empire.
Organizers seated Bonkoungou as an honored invitee, a deliberate placement that reflects a longstanding relationship between Dassault's business jet services arm and Bonkoungou's aviation company, Liza Transport International, known in the industry as LTI. He arrived in Bordeaux on March 10 with senior members of his team, according to West African reports that tracked his itinerary, and told local media that the aerospace sector moves fast and that staying close to new aircraft launches helps his group identify business opportunities early.
The aircraft at the center of the event was the Falcon 10X, which Dassault has positioned as its new flagship for long-haul business aviation. The company says the jet is capable of a top speed of Mach 0.925 and a maximum range of 7,500 nautical miles, with a cabin the manufacturer markets as the largest in its class. Dassault highlighted an all-composite wing and a cockpit system it calls NeXus. The pitch was direct: this jet is built to compete at the very top of the private aviation market, where buyers expect transoceanic range and interiors that rival high-end real estate.
That is precisely the clientele Bonkoungou now courts through LTI and its affiliates, which present themselves as a diversified aviation group offering VIP transport and specialized air services. The fleet includes Airbus A318 and A319 aircraft, several Dassault Falcons, cargo aircraft, helicopters and regional turboprops tied to a separate commercial operation, Liz Aviation, which Bonkoungou launched in April 2023 as a commercial airline serving Burkina Faso and the wider subregion.
The aviation push runs in parallel with the group that made him one of West Africa's wealthiest men. EBOMAF, short for Entreprise Bonkoungou Mahamadou et Fils, is known across Francophone West Africa for road construction, airport development and large public infrastructure contracts that have accumulated to more than $3 billion in value over the past decade. Bonkoungou has also pushed into banking through IB Bank and IB Holding, and more recently into healthcare, machinery distribution and digital transport through a series of moves concentrated in Togo and Burkina Faso.
The Bordeaux trip came at the end of a broader international circuit that West African business coverage described as logistics-focused. His aviation group opened a Dubai office in January 2026, framed as part of building cargo and time-critical airlift capability out of one of the world's largest logistics gateways. A jet with the range of the Falcon 10X fits that logic directly. It can connect West Africa to Europe, the Gulf, Asia and North America with fewer stops, an advantage when contracts, government meetings or cargo operations shift without warning.
What is not yet confirmed is whether Bonkoungou is already in discussions to acquire the 10X or whether the Bordeaux appearance was about staying close to a manufacturer he already knows well. West African accounts of the event suggested future acquisition discussions are ongoing but stopped short of confirming a purchase.
Dassault reserved the kind of front-row visibility at its launch event that manufacturers typically extend to serious customers. Bonkoungou left Bordeaux having signaled something clear about where EBOMAF's boss sees his group going next: an aviation footprint built to match his construction empire, with an appetite for the newest aircraft rather than the previous generation.
