Bizav Analysts See Market Momentum Despite Uncertainty

The business aviation sector continues to show resiliency in the face of potential headwinds, and industry analysts participating in a JetNet webinar on Friday agreed that this is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Those experts, however, also cautioned that a significant event could disrupt that momentum.

In the past few months, several events could have upset the market, from waterway blockades to the Iran war, AeroDynamic Advisory managing director Richard Aboulafia noted. “It’s absolutely terrible, yet the economy is fine,” he commented. 

While fuel prices crept back above $100 per barrel last week and “that’s not welcome,” Aboulafia added, “there’s a pretty close correlation between higher fuel prices and big-gain business jet demands because a lot of customers are either resource extraction companies or simply domiciled in resource-rich economies.”

Aboulafia concluded that the industry faces more tailwinds than headwinds. “The only headwind as a consequence of these geopolitical horrors is on the production side, just hugely complicating things if you're in the civil part of the industry,” he said. 

But in his view, production stumbling blocks and lengthy backlogs are worse for the commercial airline business because the pricing isn’t as strong. “If there is any blowback on the geopolitical front, I don't think it affects us,” he said of business aviation.

When asked by moderator and WingX managing director Richard Koe about inflation and interest rates, Aboulafia responded that it has translated into even more demand for business jet services, even if that sounds counterintuitive.

Corporate profits and strong equity markets, especially in the tech sector, have boosted the sector. However, he conceded that even as $100 a barrel of fuel isn’t ruinous, while adding that if the price were to reach $150, "Let’s talk again.” 

Same with interest rates.  “You don’t want a tipping point where all the indicators suddenly look terrible, and you’re being clobbered. But for here and now, everything is manageable and indeed favorable,” he said.

Bill Ostrove, manager of market intelligence and analysis for Global Jet Capital, agreed. “Q1 was a pretty good quarter, and there’s all these warning signs,” he said. “Overall things were pretty stable.” 

Any concern looking forward, is what this means for the future, Ostrove continued, pointing to geopolitical issues, the conflict in the Middle East, and still unresolved trade disputes. “As we look at some of these geopolitical tensions and as they flare up, that's where we get concerned. Everything sort of seems fine until it's not.”

But Ostrove reiterated that the market has been stable and the issues “never seemed to really erupt, so hopefully that will continue.”

He recalled that tariffs were once feared to be a big headwind, prompting people to move purchases forward to get ahead of them. “People were worried, but ultimately it didn't have too much of an impact,” Ostrove noted.  “Part of that is some of those more extreme tariffs were walked back a little bit, so they didn't have the expected impact. But then, I think the strength of our markets prevailed, as well. These assets are just in demand. Flying on business aviation remains desirable for the people who have the means to do it.”

Kevin Schwab, strategic planning manager at Honeywell Aerospace, agreed the industry has remained stable, but also said there is “a little bit of skepticism for how long this can continue…At some point, does this come back to start hurting companies and start reducing demand for business aviation?”

While those are the risk factors that he is watching, Honeywell has not seen any indications of harmful effects. “So far this year we've seen really strong performance in deliveries of new aircraft. Demand for preowned aircraft is even stronger, and flight activity remains up.” So far, we're expecting that to continue through the rest of 2026.”

Healthy skepticism remains based on the economy, he added, but “We're not seeing any of that happening yet, and so our outlook remains pretty strong for business aviation.”