Congress Helps GA Shipments Sink by 42.6%

General Aviation Business Jets

It is interesting to note that the shipment of general aviation aircraft really began to take a nosedive after Congress lambasted the auto manufacturers for using business jets to commute to Washington, DC to feed at the government trough. One price extracted from these companies was to require them to divest their companies of business aircraft while at the same time the leaders in Congress, like Nancy Pelosi, increased their use of business jets provided to members of Congress.

While there is no way to directly measure the effect the actions of Congress have had on general aviation aircraft sales, we can see that the number of business jets for sale today as a percentage of the overall fleet size is at historic highs. Banks, regulated by the government, are demanding more and more of borrowers, and it is hard to believe the banks aren’t also looking at business aircraft ownership when considering what to loan a company.

On the other hand, Brian Foley, a business aviation analyst, has projected that business jet sales will rise at an annual rate of 2.7% annually over the next decade. He threw out the 2008 and 2009 numbers as anomalies and predicts 8,900 bizjets will be built over the next 10 years.

Another interesting prediction by Foley was his fuel consumption forecast. He predicts annual consumption of aviation fuel of 2.5 billion gallons, a 57% increase in fuel consumption over 2009. At the same time he predicted the roller coaster aviation business cycle trends will continue with periodic boom and lean times.

How is your flight department doing?

Until next time keep your wings straight and level Hersch!

JetAviator7

You Americans build airplanes like a Rolex watch. Knock it off the night table and it stops ticking. We build airplanes like a cheap alarm clock. But knock if off the table and it still wakes you up.

— Alexander Tupolev, to Kelly Johnson and Ben Rich, quoted in ‘Skunk Works.’