AMSTAT latest Market Update report

AMSTAT report that during Q4 of 2011, conditions in the worldwide business aircraft resale market continued to show improvement, although performance was less than consistent across market segments.

According to AMSTAT, in Q3 2011 business turbo-prop resale retail transaction activity showed positive growth whereas the business jets took a small step backwards.  These roles were reversed for Q4. In this latest quarter, 2.5% of the worldwide fleet of business Jets changed ownership via resale retail transactions, making it the best performing quarter for 2011, slightly edging Q4 2010 (2,4%).  By contrast, resale retail transactions in the turbo-prop market decreased from 2.6% in Q3 to 2.4% in Q4 coming in just below the Q4 2010 performance (2.5%).  In both market segments, Q4 resale retail transaction activity was below the 20-year averages of 3% for jets and 3.2% for turbo-props.

The report highlights improvements in the availability of business aircraft.  At the start of January 2012, 13.7% of the worldwide fleet or business jets were for sale.  This represents a 0.3% decreased over October and the return of a positive trend after several months of leveling off.  For turbo-props, 10.2% of the worldwide fleet is currently for sale, which represents a 0.5% decrease from Q3.

On this most recent activity, Tom Benson, executive vice president of AMSTAT noted that “the past two years have been marked by slow improvements, often interrupted by periods of leveling off, and even setbacks…It would be nice to see a full calendar year of uninterrupted improvements, even if small in magnitude. A year like that might give us a reason to use the word “good” again
when describing business aviation market conditions.”