Writer

Amy Laboda

Utica, New York-based aircraft market analysis firm JetNet (Booth W127) has reported both good and bad news about the preowned business and commercial aircraft markets in the first quarter. On a positive note, unsold turbine inventories are down across the board, with 120 fewer preowned aircraft being offered for sale during the period. However, there is what the company described as a "pronounced" decline of 25 percent in first-quarter retail sales and leases of all fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft as compared to a year ago. For business jets, the decline is 19.9 percent for full sale transactions versus the year-ago period.&nbsp;

 


JetNet noted that business jets are taking around 21 fewer days to sell than last year in the same quarter. Business turboprops, on the other hand, are selling in about the same amount of time (around 320 days) and showed a decrease of 9.6 percent in sales transactions. Jetnet does not cover all piston aircraft inventory or sales, but does track the Beechcraft Baron 58; Cessna 414 and 421; Diamond DA62; and Piper M350, Malibu, Matrix and Mirage.

 


Commercial airliners (including airliners sold for conversion to VIP) and turbine helicopter sales&nbsp;were both down by 31.7 percent year-on-year in the first quarter. That is where the similarities end, however, with helicopters taking 132 days longer to sell, where commercial airliners were taking about 265 fewer days to sell compared with last year.

 


The company acknowledged that the disappointing figures could improve a bit as late-quarter transactions continue to trickle in. Some intriguing statistics did show up upon deeper analysis of the data, indicating that older aircraft, from 31 to 40 years of age and more than 40 years of age, had increased retail transactions. Younger aircraft markets saw business jet sales suffering, with 50 fewer of the newest jets—zero to five years old—being sold during the period.

 


JetNet's own assessment is that the late-December U.S. stock market correction and prolonged U.S. government shutdown were most likely the causes of the downturn in preowned aircraft sales in the first quarter.

 


However, most brokers are explaining the downturn in preowned sales as being caused by a lack of good aircraft to choose from at what a buyer would consider the "right" price. They point out that&nbsp;U.S Bureau of Economic Analysis forward estimates indicate that real gross domestic product (GDP) was up by 3.2 percent in the period covered by the analysis.

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