Honeywell Forecast Sees Strong Appetite For Bizjets

The business aviation market could see as many as 8,500 new jet deliveries worth $278 billion over the next decade, according to the results from Honeywell Aerospace’s 32nd annual Global Business Aviation Outlook. Released on Sunday ahead of NBAA-BACE 2023, the outlook calls for 730 business jet deliveries worth $23 billion this year, while in 2024 it sees a 10 percent increase in deliveries, passing the 800-unit mark for the first time since 2019.

According to the company’s 10-year outlook, it predicts more than 800 deliveries a year through 2031, when the industry could once again surpass the 900-unit plateau.

“Our industry is on the upswing,” said Heath Patrick, president of Honeywell Aerospace’s Americas aftermarket division. “Operators are showing confidence with plans to expand their fleets at a faster rate than any time in the previous decade.”

He cited recent plans from fractional operators to boost their fleets by several hundred aircraft, the third consecutive year of growth in that area. “Additionally, new users in business aviation have increased demand by 500 aircraft and 6 percent more flights over the next 10 years. This, along with expected double-digit increases in turbofan deliveries in 2023 and 2024, shows our industry’s commitment to meeting growing demand.”

The company’s annual operator survey—which the forecast is in part derived from—showed that the five-year purchase plans for new business jets have increased by two percentage points from last year, surpassing pre-Covid 2019's level and are equivalent to nearly 20 percent of the in-service fleet.

North America is expected to account for 64 percent of new jet deliveries in the first half of the decade, a rate that is on par with last year’s forecast and is driven by 90 percent of the North American survey respondents believing the economy will at least remain the same or improve—making it the region with the highest degree of optimism.

European deliveries in that same period are estimated to account for 14 percent of the total, down 1 percent from last year driven by economic uncertainty and growing sustainability issues.

The Asia-Pacific region is predicted to capture 11 percent of the new jet delivery total through 2028, up one point from last year’s forecast. “For the past two years we’ve seen activity increase, especially in those fleet operators, even out of China,” noted Javier Jimenez Serrano, manager of strategy and market research. “We’re not going to see huge growth come out of China, but we are finally seeing that demand and usage show up here in the demand for new jets.” Operators in the region have the second-highest utilization growth rate in 2023, trailing only the Middle East, which is expected to capture 6 percent of the five-year deliveries, up two points from last year.

Expectations for Latin America dipped by two points from last year to 5 percent of deliveries. Nearly 70 percent of this year’s survey respondents in the region believe local economic conditions will either stay the same or decline over the next several years, making it the most pessimistic of the geographic groups.

While the number of deliveries forecast over the next decade remained the same from last year’s outlook, Honeywell’s analysts have isolated 500 aircraft as the “new user” impact resulting from the Covid pandemic. “There is a gap between what the world would have needed between 2020 and 2022, and what the industry delivered,” Serrano explained to AIN, adding the deficit was due to supply chain shortages.

“Now we know there was no drop in demand, there was a drop in supply so for the next few years we have to catch up. Backlogs may not be increasing at the same rate as 2022, but they are not going away, we’re not seeing cancellations either. After things have settled down, once you add up the pre-Covid total and the new total, that’s where we get the 500. They’re not new versus last year, we’ve just been able to identify them.”

Over the next decade, new jet deliveries and expenditures are expected to grow at an annual 2 percent rate, in line with expected global economic growth.

While the top-end, ultra-long-range segment is anticipated to account for nearly 69 percent of expenditures over the next five years. "It does give me pause that a lot of the growth and a lot of the industry value is on these $80 million-plus assets," said Serrano.

"However we keep tracking indicators such as the changes in list price, and we have seen those list prices increase, we haven't seen them stay constant or go down, so that's an indication there is a healthy demand, and not going away."

Serrano also noted some improvement in a smaller class. "I would say that this year, the medium segment has increased [by] a couple of percentage points, taking those percentage points from the top-end jets,” he said. “We are particularly excited there because that’s where Honeywell has the HTF engine.”

The survey also indicated that five-year purchase plans for used jets total 27 percent of the current fleet, one percentage point below last year’s result. After record-high demand for preowned aircraft over the past two years, used inventory is slowly increasing as the market normalizes.

Year-to-date flight activity has declined from 2022 and is expected to be down 4 percent for the year. That's due to factors such as inflation and the continuing rebound of commercial airline schedules.

Yet according to the survey results, nearly two-thirds of the survey respondents indicated that they expect to fly the same amount they did in 2023, while 29 percent responded that they expect to fly more next year.

“That is good news because we have seen flight activity come down a bit in 2023 from the highs of 2022, however, we are still 10 to 12 percent above where we were in 2019,” Serrano said, adding the industry is up by 6 percent over what the projected demand would have been without the Covid interruption. “That is the new users in this case of business aviation.”

This year’s survey also showed increased awareness and interest in sustainability, with nearly 60 percent of respondents indicating they are implementing at least one method to reduce their carbon footprint, a 10 percent increase from last year’s results. Among the operators, 67 percent said they either plan to adopt or increase methods for more environmentally friendly operations in the future, with 40 percent listing sustainable aviation fuel use as the easiest path toward that goal.