2016 deliveries lowest since 2004

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Last year the 10 (count them) business jet manufacturers delivered 661 business jets. It is the lowest figure since 2004 when customers took 591 aircraft. It is a 7.9% drop from 2015. This is worse than many expected. All of the major manufacturers delivered less aircraft apart from Cessna. Cessna’s 7% increase was largely thanks to the Citation Latitude.

Two brand new aircraft types were delivered in 2016: the Cirrus SF50 Vision Jet and the Falcon 8X. Cirrus delivered three Vision Jets. Dassault do not report numbers to GAMA on a type basis, but looking at the number of aircraft that have appeared at airports around the world, the number of Falcon 8X deliveries is likely to be similar.

Although the Latitude is not a brand new aircraft, Cessna are still working their way through the initial set of launch customers. The first Latitude was delivered in August 2015. Cessna delivered 16 Citation Lattiitudes in 2015 and 42 in 2016.

Another new – if not brand new aircraft – is the HondaJet. Honda delivered two aircraft in 2015. It delivered 23 in 2016.

Without the Lattitude, the HondaJet, the Cirrus SF50 and Falcon 8X – the total drop for the year would have been 16.9%.

It is hard to see how 2017 will be much different. There are two exciting new models that could begin deliveries in 2017 but the first deliveries are expected to be towards the end of this year.

The Pilatus PC-24 is due to make its debut with US operator PlaneSense in the fourth quarter, and Cessna has previously said that the Citation Longitude will enter service ‘late in 2017’.

We were prepared for 2016 to be a bad year for deliveries. And it was. It does not look like 2017 will be much different.

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