Continued Recovery – GAMA 2nd Quarter Data

Continued recovery for general and business aviation is illustrated by second quarter shipment results for business aircraft.  GAMA, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, reported second quarter shipments for the industry today.  Single engine aircraft, both piston and turboprop, are exceeding pre-pandemic levels while business jets and multi-engine turboprops are higher year over year but remain behind 2019 levels.

While business jets remain short of pre-pandemic delivery levels, year to year growth of 11.8% in fixed-wing deliveries over the first half of 2021 indicates positive movement. Overall, general aviation deliveries in 2022 are outpacing the levels achieved pre-pandemic in 2019 with 3.3% more aircraft, but an 8% shortfall in billings. Helicopter shipments continue to lag, reaching 83.1% of 2019 units and 88.5% of billings. The following chart summarizes the performance of the industry during the first two quarters of each year from 2019-2022.

The industry has yet to fully recover, despite high demand for business aircraft charters and higher levels of business aircraft operations. With supply chain constraints slowing the ramp-up of production levels post-pandemic, manufacturers have been unable to meet near-term demand. Nonetheless, the book to bill ratios for virtually every manufacturer are in positive territory as aircraft demand has grown in 2022. Getting aircraft built, with shortages of key components, including in some cases engines, has slowed the continued recovery. We expect disruptions to diminish during the last half of 2022 and the industry to return to full production levels by the second quarter of 2023.

Business jet deliveries increased by 25 aircraft year over year as the segment continued recovery, but still lagged 2019 levels by 44 aircraft through the second quarter. Business jets deliveries reached 86.8% of pre-pandemic levels for the first half of the year. Textron led the segment with 87 deliveries, followed by Bombardier at 49, Gulfstream and 47, Cirrus at 30 and Embraer at 29. The following table summarizes business jet deliveries over the last 4 years.

On a market share basis, Textron has the highest market share in terms of business jet deliveries, as shown in the following table, which includes the first and second quarters of 2019 through 2022.