The pre-owned business jet market has always been a useful mirror of the overall state of the industry. Since the 2008 economic decline, the number of used aircraft in the for-sale inventory has stood uncomfortably high, prices have dipped, and the average calendar time an aircraft sits on the block has stretched out.
But the creeping worldwide recovery has improved prospects for sellers, albeit painfully slowly. In its most recent market summary, bizav statistician JetnNet analyzed the most recent numbers as “underwhelming,” but expressed hope that 2017 will prove to be the start of an accelerating recovery.
In January, the fleet-for-sale percentages were lower than in December, with business jets down 0.5 percent and turboprops down 0.6 percent. Across all markets, including airliners, JetNet reported a total of 8,278 full retail sale transactions in 2016, including leases. Business jets accounted for almost 2,500 of those. Business jets and turboprops are also taking less time to sell, nine days less than last year for jets; 22 days less for turboprops. One reason might be that asking prices declined by 7.3 percent, which correlated directly with the 7.3 percent decline in actual selling prices.
The accepted dividing line between a sellers’ or a buyers’ market has traditionally been set at 10 percent of the active fleet on the fleet-for-sale market. At the nadir of the recession in December 2009, that statistic peaked at 16.3 percent. As of the last JetNet report, the number sat at 11 percent; some 2,315 aircraft, edging down from 2,359 (11.5 percent) at the end of 2015. The JetNet report asks, “Will we see a sellers' market return in 2017? For that to occur, there would need to be a reduction of more than 200 business jets “'for sale”' or a similar reduction in the number of business jets in operation (which could be obtained by aircraft being retired).”
The number of full retail sale transactions for business jets dropped in January after six consecutive years of monthly increases. This downturn cut across all business aircraft market sectors, except turboprops, which increased by 0.2 percent. All weight classes of business jets experienced across-the-board reductions. There were 8.9 percent fewer transactions in heavy jets, with medium-jet sales not far behind, dipping by 8.2 percent. Light jets took honors for the most transactions at 862, representing 35 percent of the 2,442-strong overall fleet.
