Calling the Central and South American business aviation market “an industry life buoy” over the worldwide economic slowdown, analyst Brian Foley now believes the region is taking on water, fast. “This market has entered a cyclic downturn that will be more pronounced than previous ones,” said Foley, founder of consultancy Brifo.

Using data from Amstat, Foley sees the private aircraft fleet as having “been telegraphing a pending slowdown for some time now.” He said sales of private jets, turboprops and helicopters are exhibiting continuous declines in year-over-year growth rates. Just four years ago, said Foley, “growth approached or exceeded double digits.” But that growth has ebbed to low single-digit rates over the past 12 months, he said. He views the immediate future as even worse.

The fleet growth numbers suffer even greater by comparison to how strong growth was while the rest of the world was in the doldrums. Helicopters in particular showed around 15 percent growth in sales in 2011, according to an Amstat graphic supplied by Brifo. That rate of growth plummeted by close to half the next year, however, to less than 8 percent in 2012, and has continued to decline steadily ever since.

Jet sales, on the other hand, have seen an up-and-down path over the past half decade, according to Foley’s Amstat numbers. Facing steady decline from 2011 to 2013, jet sales rebounded slightly the following year to just better than 6 percent growth. But since then they have dipped, registering less than a 4 percent increase this fiscal year.

Turboprops started with relatively weak growth in 2011 at 8 percent and have faced a consistent downward trend through this year, now showing around 2 percent growth.

“It’s my thesis that the fleet will eventually contract over the next few years, with equipment either being idled or sold to more prosperous regions of the world, such as the U.S.,” he said. Declining oil prices loom as among the largest factors, in his view. “The drop off in commodity prices–including around a 50 percent drop in oil prices over the past year–has the greatest implication [for the decline in business aircraft sales]. As a region with an economy heavily dependent on natural resources, the full effects have yet to be seen and will linger throughout these economies for years.”

But all is not grim, concludes Foley. He sees Mexico as a possible exception to the coming downturn in fortune for the Central and South American region. That’s mostly because Mexico is so close to the U.S., which is exhibiting signs of significant economic recovery. And the overall Mexican economy is poised to benefit directly from the upsurge in business aviation activity to the north, said Foley. “Given all of the manufacturing projects outsourced to Mexico by general aviation manufacturers, that’s a welcome way to reciprocate,” he said.