Story ID: 413
IADA Looks Ahead at NBAA-BACE and Beyond
By: Sarah Rose
Caption: "The industry continues to not live up to what I think the people expect"
Word Count: 406
International Aircraft Dealers Association (IADA) executive director Wayne Starling told AIN that the association is looking ahead to the future of private aviation, and that includes a post-Covid market boom for the industry.
“What happened to the airlines just became a mess. So our business, we had the greatest year we've ever had [post-Covid] and we continued that and it hasn't gone back down to a low yet. I think we're right now just averaging and leveling out and we're blessed with that," he said. "But going into the fourth quarter, our quarterly market report…shows [that in] our third quarter, we were up in all the categories we tracked.”
Starling also noted little impact from the election year driving decision-making in the market. “What's amazing about this summer is we didn't experience what we normally experience and we expected the upcoming election to have an effect,” he said.
“The feedback so far is that it really hasn't happened this year as it happened in the past. So we've seen very little effect on people holding off because of the uncertainty of the election. Very unusual this year.”
As far as reasons why that might be, he declined to speculate. “I wish I could give you one,” he said with a laugh. “I think it's the fact that the airline industry continues to not live up to what I think the people expect.”
According to Starling, the shift that has occurred recently with shows such as NBAA-BACE and EBACE is concerning. Several business aircraft OEMs have beeb declining to participate in these shows as they have in years prior, with both Dassault Falcon and Gulfstream Aerospace absent this week at NBAA-BACE 2024.
“The question is: do shows bring the right kind of people for companies to demonstrate and show their newest and latest and greatest?” he asked. “So I was real pleased that Textron Aviation was able to come back and be in. I think that will help.
“I think NBAA and large shows are challenged going forward as to what is right. What's the right venue to have to draw people together and bring prospective buyers and members at the same time and industry people together? I know that they're working hard to figure that out, and we're anxious to see what comes along like everybody else here.”