Miami swan song

opinion

by Alasdair Whyte

November 10, 2025

The biggest thing worrying attendees at our CJI Miami conference this year was ornithological. Their concern is an unknown big black swan ploughing through the global financial markets.

Absent of that, everyone is confident that 2026 will be another great year for transactions.

The return of bonus depreciation in President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill guaranteed that the end of 2025 would be strong. And it is.

CJI Miami literally saw broker-dealers pitching aircraft that are available for year-end sales or asking if anyone knew of an aircraft for sale that their clients are looking for.

This week also saw Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, cancel luxury tax on aircraft which will definitely boost sales north of the border.

Bloomberg aviation analyst George Ferguson said his biggest surprise of the past 12 months is that OEMs have kept their book-to-bill (sales to deliveries) above one and this looks reasonable for 2026.

Michael Amalfitano, president of Embraer Executive Jets, was equally bullish (he also revealed a fantastic throwing arm with the microphone American Football). Embraer had a 65% increase in its backlog in the third quarter. It ended September with $7.3bn in orders. During the first nine months of the year, Embraer delivered 102 units – up from 86 in the same period of 2024.

Amalfitano said that the company is seeing strong demand from fleet customers, individuals and corporate flight departments that are “right-sizing” in his words.

Last week Bombardier announced a book-to-bill of 1.3 for the third quarter, giving it a $16.6bn backlog. “Demand remains strong across our entire portfolio, and our backlog remains at a five-year high levels with a healthy balance between individual and fleet customers,” said Eric Martel, CEO, Bombardier on an analyst call last week. “We had a double-digit growth for several key metrics, starting with 13% more deliveries, 11% more revenues, including a 12% more revenues from services.”

Operators are still facing major issues getting parts and Nicholas Correnti, the eponymous founder and CEO of NICHOLAS AIR, raised concerns that manufacturers are favouring deliveries over supporting delivered aircraft. Correnti said that they are finding it easier to retain pilots, but he is still concerned about an industry-wide shortage of technicians.

The next seven weeks are going to see a flurry of deals as US buyers rush to put aircraft into service before the end of the tax year. Many, including AvPro’s co-founder Chris Ellis, Henry Thompson, vice president, Business Development at Freestream and Christopher Tasca, president, Fly Alliance, see this momentum carrying into 2025.

As long as no black swans take flight.