A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Business Aviation Services Editor

Curt Epstein

Business jet deliveries for the first half of the year rose by 8% compared with the same period in 2025, while high-end turboprops saw a more than 26% increase, and turbine helicopter shipments grew by 3.3%, according to the latest report from the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA). Total airplane billings jumped by 15.5% to $14.3 billion for the first six months of the year.
For the first half, Embraer led the major private jet OEMs with a 21% increase in deliveries compared with last year’s first six months. The Brazilian manufacturer handed over seven more of each of its Phenom 300Es and Praetor 500s, on its way to 74 aircraft delivered.
Gulfstream Aerospace surpassed its first-half 2025 tally by five aircraft, a 6.8% increase. With the entry into service of its ultra-long-range G800, the General Dynamics subsidiary added four more units to its large-cabin segment for a total of 66.
France-based Dassault, which only reports its delivery totals mid-year and at year-end, remained static, exceeding its total of 12 Falcon jets handed over in the first six months of 2025 by one unit.
Bombardier and Textron Aviation both saw downturns in their deliveries year over year. The former handed over five fewer Challengers than it did a year ago, for a 5% overall decrease, while Textron Aviation was down this year in all its jet products except for the super-midsize Cessna Citation Longitude, which was up by five aircraft, and the CJ3+, which surpassed its first-half 2025 total by one unit. The Wichita-based OEM delivered 77 Cessna jets for the half.
For light-jet manufacturers, Cirrus posted a strong 27% increase in deliveries for its single-engine SF50 Vision Jet, handing over 57 this year as compared with 45 in the first six months of 2025. Pilatus, which delivered 17 PC-24 twinjets in the first half last year, tacked on one more this year, as did Honda, which handed over five HondaJets in the first half.
In the bizliner segment, Airbus delivered three ACJs this year, one more than it did in the same period a year ago, while Boeing, which had no business jet deliveries in the first half of 2025, handed over one, a BBJ 737-8.
Turboprops Rise
On the turboprop side, the airframers delivered 184 airplanes, compared with 146 a year ago. Pilatus led the charge, delivering 18 more single-engine PC-12s during the first half of 2026 than it did a year ago, a 72% rise, while Epic more than doubled the number of E1000s it handed over. It increased from seven to 15 this year, good for a 114% improvement.
Daher added four aircraft to its 2026 delivery total (37). While the OEM remained static with nine deliveries of its rugged Kodiak single-engine utility airplane, it increased deliveries in the TBM line with the introduction in January of its newest variant, the TBM 980.
Likewise, Piper improved by four aircraft over its first-half 2025 numbers, its three additional M600s and M700 Furys contributing to a total of 25 overall deliveries.
While Textron Aviation saw fewer deliveries of its single-engine Caravan and Grand Caravan utility airplanes, with 36 this year compared with 43 in the same period of 2025, the Wichita-based airframer more than compensated in its twin-engine King Air family, increasing the number of 260s and 360s it handed over by five each, for a total of 62 turboprops.
Piaggio delivered two of its twin-engine Avanti Evos so far this year, doubling its first-half 2025 output.
The piston aircraft segment saw some minor retrenchment, with deliveries down by 3.1% year over year.
Turbine Helicopters See Slight Improvement
Deliveries in the turbine rotorcraft segment were up 3.3% compared with the first half of last year. Leonardo Helicopters saw the largest increase (15.7%), with its AW189/149 platform up by nine units so far this year. The Italian OEM also tacked on seven additional AW139s and five AW109s compared with the first six months of 2025.
Airbus Helicopters saw a nearly 8% year-over-year improvement, delivering 142 units this year, spurred by a major increase in the H145 model, which had 52 deliveries, 16 more than in the first half last year.
On the downside were Bell, which was off by just over 8% compared to the first six months of 2025,&nbsp;and Robinson Helicopter, which handed over 30 single-engine R66s, six fewer than it did in the first six months last year.&nbsp;
Sikorsky had one S-92 delivery in the first half of 2025, but none thus far in 2026, while Enstrom had no deliveries of its turbine-powered 480B in the first half of either year.
“General aviation manufacturers are working hard to meet the robust demand for aircraft, and it is very encouraging to see a strong first half of the year,” said GAMA president and CEO James Viola.

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