Double digit delivery drop

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All the major dedicated aircraft manufacturers have now reported their delivery figures for the first six months. It is no surprise that the number of new deliveries is down for the first half of the year. OEMs have all warned of this.

Of the big five manufacturers (Honda’s come out on Tuesday), only Textron and Dassault delivered more aircraft. But even then we are only talking about one and two aircraft respectively.

Embraer had the biggest drop, sliding from 49 deliveries to 39. Bombardier dropped by six aircraft to 36 aircraft rather than the 42 last year. Gulfstream also delivered six fewer than last year, with a total of 30 new aircraft deliveries over the first six months.

There are, however, encouraging signs of demand improving. Gulfstream say that in the second quarter it took in more G650 and G650ER orders than in any quarter of the last 1.5 years. Dassault had net orders of 14 Falcons, up from 11 in 2016.

One thing that all manufacturers agree on is that orders are taking longer to close. This seems to be a real change. “It is just taking longer for a whole series of reasons,” said Phebe Novakovic, CEO of General Dynamics. “Everything from the introduction of brokers to additional board approvals for fleet aircraft purchases. Those are constant, but there’s nothing in particular that’s driving this other than I think this is just a new regular order. It’s going to just take longer from the time you enter the pipeline to the time you sign the contract.”

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