The cloud over general aviation may not yet have a silver lining, but there are rays of sunshine from the increasing business use of all types of GA aircraft, which the FAA expects to expand at a faster pace than for purely personal and recreational transportation.
After growing rapidly for most of the past decade, and then slowing over the past few years, the overall general aviation aircraft market has recorded modest growth, according to the most recent shipment activity.
“While economic uncertainties still affect the business jet market, the rate of decline slowed and a recovery is expected in the near term,” the agency said in its annual aerospace forecast. The 20-year outlook for Fiscal Years 2014-2034 calls for “robust growth” in the long term, driven by higher corporate profits and the growth of worldwide GDP, although at rates slightly lower than those predicted last year.
According to the FAA, continued concerns about safety, security and flight delays keep business aviation more attractive than airline travel. Industry experts and prior years’ survey results confirm that a significant portion of piston aircraft hours are also used for business purposes, the agency said.
Agency Needs Long-term Funding
The FAA Aerospace Forecast was released March 13 at a conference hosted by the American Association of Airport Executives (AAAE) in Arlington, Va. One of the highlights was a panel focused on “The Next FAA Reauthorization.”
NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen and other leaders from the aerospace, airport and airline sectors agreed that funding uncertainty, driven in part by 23 budget extensions over five years before Congress finally completed an FAA reauthorization in 2012, has only added to the challenge of funding FAA programs.
“Last year’s budget battles, which led to sequestration and furloughs for air traffic controllers, created even more disruptions and distractions,” Bolen said. “Hopefully, having been through all of this is an incentive for getting to a longer-term FAA reauthorization this time.”
Joining Bolen on the panel were Todd Hauptli, president and CEO of the AAAE; Marion Blakey, president and CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association; and Sharon Pinkerton, senior v-p of legislative and regulatory policy at Airlines for America.
The active GA fleet is projected to grow at an average annual rate of 0.5 percent over the 21-year forecast period, expanding to 225,700 aircraft by 2034 from an estimated 202,865 last year. The more expensive and sophisticated turbine-powered fleet (including rotorcraft) is projected to grow to a total of 49,565 aircraft at an average rate of 2.6 percent a year over the forecast period, with the jet portion increasing at 3 percent a year, reaching a total of 22,050 by 2034.
Although the total number of general aviation hours flown is projected to increase by 1.4 percent yearly over the forecast period, the FAA sees faster growth in hours after 2023, with increases in the fixed-wing turbine aircraft fleet, as well as increasing use of both single and multi-engine piston aircraft as the aging of this fleet starts to slow down. In the medium term, much of the increase in hours flown reflects strong growth in the rotorcraft and jet fleets.
The FAA uses estimates of fleet size, hours flown and use from the “General Aviation and Part 135 Activity Survey” as baseline figures upon which assumed growth rates can be applied. Because results from the GA Survey are not published until the following year, the 2012 statistics are the latest available.
In 2010 the FAA issued a Rule for Re-Registration and Renewal of Aircraft Registration that required all aircraft registered in the U.S. to re-register over the three-year period from 2011 to 2013. Afterwards, registrations must be renewed every three years.
Based on the latest FAA assumptions about the impact of the re-registration rule, fleet attrition and aircraft use, along with General Aviation Manufacturers Association aircraft shipment statistics, the active GA fleet is estimated to have contracted by 3 percent last year, to 202,865 aircraft. General aviation flight hours are estimated to have fallen by 1.8 percent, to 24 million, in the same period.
