While overall sentiment is up in Jeffries Equity Research’s 10th biannual business jet survey, the newly released report calls for 3.7 percent growth of new jet deliveries this year, down from its midyear 2020 prediction for a 6 percent increase. Based on responses from 102 business jet brokers globally, the survey’s sentiment index climbed by 1.7 points, to 6.6 on a 10-point scale, compared with 4.9 in June and a 5.7 rating a year ago.

Business jets from Cessna/Textron Aviation and Gulfstream have the highest customer interest—cited by 34 percent and 28 percent of respondents, respectively. Respondents were mixed on the super-midsize Cessna Citation Longitude due to high relative pricing versus competitors, but mostly positive on Embraer Praetors in the mid-cabin space.

On the higher end, they were split on the competition between the Bombardier Global 7500 and Gulfstream G650, with half believing that the latter’s brand and performance will prevail. Meanwhile, 23 percent of respondents consider the G700 to be best positioned for success in the crop of new models.

The survey did note an expected silver lining from the pandemic: continued elevated interest in business aircraft flying. In fact, 45 percent of those surveyed believe interest in fractional and air charter will climb post-Covid. However, in the near-term they expect sales transactions to drop by 11 percent and residual values to sink 14 percent thanks to the pandemic’s global macro-economic impact. Forty percent of respondents believe light jets will pick up the most, followed by midsize jets (31 percent), and large-cabin jets (18 percent).