A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Senior Editor

Curt Epstein

U.S. data provider JetNet has revised its 10-year business jet delivery forecast down for the sixth consecutive quarter. The Utica, N.Y.-based firm currently calls for 7,921 jets to be delivered by 2025 with a value of $226 billion (in 2015 dollars). For 2016, the company predicts deliveries of 681 bizjets, down from last year's total of 712. (JetNet excludes twin-aisle, airliner-based aircraft from its forecasts.)

 


“We are tremendously oversupplied in this industry,” said Rolland Vincent, managing director of JetNetIQ, in a presentation yesterday. “It’s probably the biggest factor driving prices down.” Based on his calculations, the U.S., by far the world’s largest business jet market, currently has an estimated 3,800 idle business jets.

 


In terms of overall business jet utilization in the U.S., the levels have not yet returned to the lofty peaks before the global financial crisis. In fact, the number of cycles last year came close to the number in 2003, ahead of the most recent boom. From that time until 2015, the U.S. business jet fleet grew by 50 percent. In 2007, the average number of business jet cycles per jet in the U.S. was 480. Last year that number was 336.

 


Yet the U.S. business jet fleet continues to grow. “What’s going on is we have too many airplanes chasing too few buyers, and prices are soft,” noted Vincent. He dispelled the notion that aircraft are not selling. There are three times as many sales of preowned aircraft as there are new-aircraft sales. Vincent noted 2,300 private jets changed hands over the past year. “It’s the highest level of sales we’ve ever seen in the world,” he told the audience. “So when people say the market is soft, actually it’s pretty active. What’s soft is pricing because we have oversupply.”

 


He believes that trend in activity will continue to increase as aircraft become even more affordable. While the levels of available aircraft at present equal those of 2007—before the downturn sent owners rushing for the “for sale” signs—Vincent noted that inventory is increasing.

 


According to regulatory findings, the “Big 5” bizjet manufacturers showed an 18 percent decrease in order book value between 2014 and 2015. Among them, only Embraer showed a year-over-year increase in the value of its backlog, while Dassault reported a decline of 14 percent, and Bombardier's stands at twice that at 28 percent.

 


Since 2011, JetNet has conducted its quarterly IQ surveys of business aircraft operators, and based on its first-quarter 2016 results, of the more than 500 respondents, less than 50 percent believe we have passed the low point in the current business cycle. Optimism was highest in North America, where 52 percent said business was on the upswing, followed by Europe at 48 percent. Latin America and the Caribbean showed the most pessimism, with 46 percent of operators in the survey responding that the cycle has not yet reached the bottom of the trough.

 


Broken down by the size of aircraft, small-jet operators were most enthusiastic; 53.5 percent said we were past the bottom of the cycle, while large-jet operators took the most negative view, with only 36 percent indicating they were seeing an upswing. That is in stark contrast with the segment’s mood three quarters ago, when 60 percent believed the business cycle was on the rise.

 


Among European operators in the survey, nearly a quarter indicated that they had a better-than-60 percent probability of buying a new jet in the next five years, a slightly higher percentage than the rest of the world.

 


When asked whether concern about residual value has delayed their purchase of a new or pre-owned aircraft over the past two years, 65 percent of the European operators indicated “yes,” to varying degrees, the highest regional total. That concern has led to approximately an even split among operators in the survey as to whether to refurbish an existing aircraft or buy a new or pre-owned replacement.

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