While supply issues remain a considerable thorn in the side of the business aviation industry, and wars and border tensions threaten to destabilize business in certain regions, the outlook for the sector is generally positive for the remainder of 2023 and into the next year. That is the analysis of business aviation market intelligence specialist JetNet iQ in its latest quarterly report issued on Tuesday at NBAA-BACE 2023.
There are longer-term issues that need to be addressed to maintain positivity, including sustainability, improving the industry’s image, and restoring the talent pipelines of young, enthusiastic people entering the industry—and retaining them for the long term, it said.
Although the industry has seen a remarkable rebound in traffic in the post-Covid era, JetNet iQ managing director Rolland Vincent said this has not necessarily been a result of growth in GDP, which has been unspectacular across most leading nations in recent years. In the U.S., for instance, which accounts for 63.5 percent of the global business aviation fleet, the economy is expected to rise by only 1.8 percent this year.
However, in terms of business jet flight operations, the figure is now greater than before both the Covid pandemic and also the boom years of the 2000s (before the 2008/9 global financial crisis). The rise in movements is now trending slightly down again as the business normalizes after the post-Covid boom.
The available inventory of preowned business aircraft is increasing and now runs at around 6 percent of the total fleet, but the number of sales is reducing, so the figures are converging as the supply and demand begin to balance. For the OEMs, sales of new aircraft are growing, and most are reporting order backlogs of between 18 months and two years.
The monitoring of industry optimism shows a large rise following the low point of the Covid pandemic, growing sharply through 2021 and early 2022, before falling sharply by the end of the year as fears of an economic downturn took hold. However, the third-quarter report shows a welcome rise in industrial optimism as those fears dissipated.
With sustainability now becoming an oft-heard term in business aviation circles, it is no surprise that the JetNet iQ report shows a growing acceptance of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Four years ago, the percentage of the industry considering the use of SAF was just 31 percent, but in the third quarter that proportion had risen to 56 percent. Addressing sustainability is one of a number of actions that can help in improving the industry’s image.
The report’s 10-year projection for fleet changes suggests that the 23,417-strong business jet fleet will increase overall, with 3,745 aircraft expected to be retired or removed. New deliveries are forecast to add 8,685 aircraft between now and 2032—for a net gain of nearly 5,000 jets. The turboprop fleet, on the other hand, is expected to grow by only 1,300 units.