With the nation and, indeed, the world stunned at the results of the most bizarre and rancorous U.S. Presidential election in history, there are widespread concerns over the stability and long-term confidence of the economy in the largest market for business aviation.
Earlier this year, all the major economic indexes reached all-time highs; the Dow Jones Industrial Average flirted with 18,700, the S&P 500 nudged 2,200 and the Nasdaq reached a peak of 5,340. The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 4.7 percent in October, the lowest rate since August 2007, and the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), typically a bellwether for business aircraft usage, grew by 2.9 percent in the third quarter, its highest rate in more than two years. However, those numbers do not mean what they used to. Cycles for the U.S. business aircraft fleet this year are expected to approximate the levels last seen in 2003, according to statistics provided by industry analyst JetNet. At that time, there were 9,500 business jets in service in the U.S.; today there are 12,500.