ASG releases business jet report

Asian Sky Group (Photo: Stepworks).

Asian Sky Group (ASG) has released its Year End 2015 Asia-Pacific Business Jet Fleet Report at ABACE in Shanghai, China. The 4th edition of ASG’s Business Jet Fleet Report has been expanded this year to include the markets of India, New Zealand and Australia.

The Asia Pacific business jet fleet stood at 1,134 aircraft by year end 2015, a 6.2% increase over 2014 and in line with most market forecasts. Overall, the region increased by 140 aircraft – 66 new and 74 pre-owned – but also saw 74 aircraft leave the region.

China remains the largest market in the Asia Pacific region with 300 business jets, though its growth rate was just 3.8% in 2015, a significant deceleration from previous years. 2015’s poor performance was due to a decline in new aircraft deliveries which were 28 fewer than in 2014, a drop of 42%.

After China, the next two largest markets in the Asia Pacific region are Australia with 184 aircraft (7% growth in 2015) and India with 145 aircraft (4% growth in 2015). The smaller markets of Indonesia, the Philippines and Japan all added additional aircraft, and in doing so, all experienced double digit growth.

Notably, markets which performed poorly in 2015 were Malaysia and Macau, both of which actually contracted. South Korea, Thailand and Singapore all remained stagnant registering no growth at all.

On an aircraft basis, in the Asia Pacific region Hong Kong saw the largest number of aircraft added to its fleet in 2015, and increase of 16 business jets. Taken together, the key territories of China, Hong Kong, Australia and India represent over two-thirds of the region’s business jet fleet.

The top three original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the Asia Pacific region by market share are Bombardier, Gulfstream and Cessna, with 27%, 23% and 19% of the fleet, respectively.

Examining only fleet additions in 2015, Bombardier saw the largest increase with 51 additional aircraft (28 new and 23 pre-owned). The most popular added model across the region was the Global 6000, and the fastest growing size category was the ‘long range’ segment. The only size category where the fleet contracted in 2015 was the ‘medium’ category – a drop of 2%.The top 20 operators in the Asia Pacific region fly 35% of the fleet, with 9 of the top 10 being operators in Greater China. Australia and India have the most operators, but these markets are extremely fragmented where 70% and 67% of the operators have just a single aircraft.

From an age perspective, the Asia Pacific region remains one of the world’s youngest, with 63% of fleet being less than 10 years old (Hong Kong has the youngest and Australia the oldest fleet, on average). The US aircraft (N) registration is still the most popular in the Asia Pacific region, and is currently being utilized in at least 15 countries.