Joseph Carfagna Jr. is president, partner, and CEO of aircraft brokerage and consultancy Leading Edge Aviation Solutions. He has worked in the business aviation industry for more than 30 years and is a seasoned salesman and aviation expert.

Contributor

Joseph Carfagna Jr.

No matter how you may feel about the U.S. election results, we now know what they are and what did and did not happen. It is hard to say that exactly two weeks is enough time to see a trend, but—as an aircraft broker—I’ve seen more interest in the purchase of business aircraft since the election results are in.
Not so much in the way of a barrage of inquiries, but a few clients and prospective clients who have been consulting with us have “hopped off the fence” and decided to proceed. Uncertainty causes hesitancy, and knowledge creates empowerment.
We now have certainty about which party will soon have a greater say so in the goings on in this country. Soon we will have the knowledge of how it unfurls, which helps empowerment in making decisions.
So we are part of the way there in knowing how the preowned business aircraft market will act. A little more time—such as the first 100 days of the Trump Administration—will give us more knowledge.
Let’s look at the business jet market holistically. Aircraft were trading at a normal, steady pace in 2019, and then Covid struck, causing a sudden Armageddon for aircraft values, which we now know was very short-lived.
Values then shot way up during the latter part of 2020, hit their apex around early 2023, and then declined at a steady pace with inventory backfilling supply in the same steady fashion—until now. Here in late 2024, values are still considerably higher in many cases than they were in 2019.
Prior to the election results, the chatter within the brokerage community was such that there was some year-end push going on but nothing like we saw in 2021 and 2022, and perhaps less than 2023. It’s now pretty late to try to buy an airplane the good old-fashioned “right way” and close before year-end.
It is a fair guess that it may not matter that much for buyers chasing the tax benefits if 100% bonus depreciation is brought back for 2025—or even brought back retroactively for those who did not get a purchase completed in 2024.
This will either be a blip on the radar screen or another long-term tightening of supply and upward mobility for pricing. Time always tells us what’s next. The short term seems to indicate that the fence has quite a few vacancies that it did not have three weeks ago.
No one ever knows for sure how to call things, but right now I would rather be in the aircraft brokerage business than on the fence building side.
The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by AIN Media Group.

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