Honeywell Forecast Sees Delivery and Revenue Rise Ahead

Business aviation OEMs are expected to deliver 8,500 business jets over the next decade, according to Honeywell Aerospace’s 34th annual industry forecast released on the eve of NBAA-BACE 2025. While that volume remains unchanged for the past four years as OEMs wrestled with post-Covid supply-chain recovery, the report predicts an increase in value to $283 billion for those aircraft, the highest dollar amount in the history of the survey. Of that amount, two-thirds of the value is expected to be on the large-jet side according to Honeywell’s calculations.

“I would say starting in 2023 to 2024 and now this year, definitely we’re seeing improvements across all supply chains, ourselves definitely, and you see this in the actual output of OEMs too, where they’re increasing [deliveries],” said Kevin Schwab, strategic planning manager for Honeywell Aerospace. “If you look at OEM guidance, and how we’re doing so far this year in terms of deliveries, I think we’re actually kind of climbing out of this period and starting to deliver the amount of jets the industry needs.”

Honeywell's annual forecast does not consider personal jets such as the Cirrus SF50 Vision Jet in its total. Excluding those, the company predicts 740 business jet deliveries this year, the highest tally since 2019.

For next year, the forecast calls for a 5% increase in deliveries over 2025. “In 2026, we’re expecting to be about 8% above [pre-pandemic] 2019 in terms of units, and because of the larger portion of large jets, now in 2026 we are expecting to be almost 25% up versus 2019 in terms of value of the aircraft that are being delivered,” Schwab told AIN.

“Notably, we’ve seen things like the Falcon 6X, the [Gulfstream] G700, and most recently the G800, obviously the [Bombardier] Global 8000 later this year, all of these either entry-into-service or ramp-ups of aircraft that had entered service recently, this is why we are expecting that growth over 2019.”

Since 2019, fractional operators have seen more than 65% growth, with their fleets now totaling roughly 1,300 aircraft. Demand for the segment has spurred the industry growth, led by the midsize and super-midsize business jet segments.

In the near-term of the forecast, the predicted mix of geographic locations for aircraft deliveries is 71% to North America, 14% to Europe, approximately 7% to Latin America, Asia-Pacific 5%, and 3% of jet deliveries will go to the Middle East and Africa. Schwab noted that North America will account for 69% of the aircraft value due to its more diverse fleet.

“There’s a higher portion of what I would call regional travel, so the value of the jets that are being delivered to North America is a bit lower than the units, and this is just because we’ve got more light jets basically,” he explained.

That contrasts with regions such as Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, which are expected to account for higher percentages of large jets in their mix due to geography and their distance to world financial centers.

For the 10-year forecast window, Honeywell anticipates an average 3% annual growth, with the market split fairly evenly between small, midsize, and large-cabin/ultra-long-range jets.

It does not see a return to the heady pre-global financial meltdown era and its more than 1,300 aircraft deliveries in 2008, but it does see steady growth, particularly reaching into the 2030s. “What we are expecting to happen in the latter term of our forecast is to get closer to that number and then be sustained,” said Schwab. “While we may not get to the peak of where we were, we suspect we will get to about 900 aircraft a year, and that will be the new normal, and then you will have growth on top of that.”

As part of its annual forecast, Honeywell interviewed several hundred business aircraft operators. When asked about their market confidence, 91% of respondents stated they expect to fly at least the same amount as they did this year, if not more.

One-fifth of all survey respondents indicated they have at least one aircraft on firm order, while among the subset of Part 135 operators, that rose to 28% of survey respondents. The return of 100% bonus depreciation is expected to spur additional aircraft purchase activity in the U.S., according to Honeywell.

While flight hours were relatively flat for 2023 and 2024, private jet usage is up 3% year over year, driven largely by the charter and fractional segments.

The 312 nonfractional respondents in this year’s survey represent nearly 1,200 aircraft, and when asked about their key purchase drivers, performance and cost ranked at the top, with aircraft range being the single most important factor.

For new aircraft buyers, the survey found that customer support and technology are weighted more heavily in purchase decisions than they are for preowned aircraft.

This year’s survey marked the fifth in which sustainability was a key topic. Of those who indicated they are taking steps to improve their environmental impact, 60% said they are acquiring more fuel-efficient aircraft, more than half are using sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), and nearly a third are flying at more efficient cruise speeds. Regarding SAF use, cost and availability remain the biggest hurdles.

“The combination of recent economic growth, increasing demand for fractional ownership, and a steady cadence of new aircraft development and technology upgrades has produced record levels of demand in business aviation,” said Heath Patrick, Honeywell Aerospace Technologies president for Americas aftermarket, summing up this year’s results. “Operators are increasing their usage rates and, in turn, manufacturers are continuing to ramp up production to keep pace with growing demand.

“Over the next decade, we expect these record-setting levels of deliveries and usage to continue,” he concluded.