Turbine Pilot Introduction

My email inbox has been overflowing with listings for used turbine aircraft, mainly business jets. Broker Elliot Jets is especially prolific. In the past two weeks alone, the company pitched nine airplanes. When you get emails like this, it makes you wonder: Are owners bailing out?

The anecdotal information is that we’re in a buyer’s market, generally defined in the aviation business as a condition where more than 10 percent of a fleet is up for sale. In the competition, asking prices go down, and some really good deals are possible. This puts pressure on manufacturers to make deals on new aircraft. “In the 2008 to 2009 time frame, 20 percent of the entire business jet fleet was up for sale,” said aviation marketing consultant Brian Foley. “But today only about 11 percent are on the market, which is more in line with historical averages.” So for now, at least, perhaps the aftermath of the 2008-2012 economic crisis is subsiding.

Elliott’s 2016 data tends to confirm this. There are 36 Embraer Phenom 100s for sale now, and the fleet size is 333 airplanes, so that’s 10.8 percent of the fleet on the market. Average asking price is $2.84 million, and Phenom 100s typically take 237 days to sell. The Phenom 300 is in demand, with just 5.7 percent of the fleet up for sale (19 of 331 airplanes manufactured), at an average asking price of $7.7 million, and taking just 197 days to sell. The Cessna CJ3 lives in a seller’s market, with 7.7 percent of the 413-strong fleet on the market at an average of $4.78 million, and taking 285 days to sell.

So in Elliott’s playbook, anyway, all is “normal.” Still, you do hear rumors of foreign markets drying up, used Phenom 100s languishing in Brazil; 15 or more percent of older Beechjets waiting to be bought; and 13 percent of the Lear 60 fleet going for average asking prices of $1.9 million. Want all the performance of a Lear 60 for a million dollars less than the price of a new Eclipse jet? Apples to oranges, I know. Elliott has two for sale in case you’re interested. If so, or if you’re curious, to see what the Lear 60 is all about, see the story on page T–10.—Thomas A. Horne, Turbine Pilot editor