As we make our flight plans for 2024, here’s a look at some of the trends that are worth watching.
Aircraft Market
As we reach the 4th anniversary of the COVID pandemic, we are starting to hear less about “struggling supply chains” that hobbled manufacturing and more about “resets” and “market rebalancing.” This is especially true in the single-pilot turboprop and jet markets. From major OEMs to avionics and component manufacturers, a new normalcy is taking shape, resulting in more reliable and reasonable lead times and backlogs.
In the pre-owned owner-flown business market, 2023 sales were steady but down compared to the brisk sales activity in 2022. In 2023, many aircraft owners were hanging onto their aircraft, as manifested in the percentage of aircraft available worldwide. By the end of October, only 3.8% of the turboprop worldwide fleet was for sale. Less than 7% of the business jet fleet was for sale. Both are well below the traditional industry average of 10%.
Is 2024 going to turn more toward a buyer’s market? Probably not to any significant degree, based on the market performance in late 2023. Going into a U.S. presidential election year with geo-political tensions sparking uncertainty, none of the industry soothsayers have 100% confidence in what will happen. But with the U.S. economy continuing to perform well, those looking to buy, sell, or trade up will have the confidence to carry on with their plans.
Insurance
One major pain point for the owner-flown segment of business aviation is attaining insurance. The good news is that there is plenty of insurance capacity, and premium increases are tempering, according to Tom Hauge of Wings Insurance. The sweet spot in terms of hull value is under $3 million. Once you go above $5 million, there are fewer insurers interested in quoting the owner-flown aircraft. This is all stated with one big caveat: low-time pilots requesting coverage for a high-hull value aircraft should expect headwinds in attaining coverage, and premiums will be high.
In other good news, new underwriters are entering the owner-flown segment of the market. For example, three new underwriters – Eiger, Mach 2, and Applied Underwriters –are now writing policies for Piper Mirage and Meridian owners.
Now, the bad news: the lack of underwriters willing to write policies for turbine aircraft pilots over the age of 70 is unlikely to change. There are no good answers on the horizon for the senior single-pilot operator except to fly with a second qualified pilot or step down to a piston aircraft, such as a Cessna 182 or Bonanza. For piston singles, most pilots are insurable until at least age 80.
Aircraft Financing
It’s been an ugly couple of years of rising inflation and interest rates. But through it all, the availability of aircraft financing has generally remained good. Interest rates topped out in early November, and most financial forecasters predict them to decrease somewhat this year.
The Federal Reserve’s Dot Plot, which capsulizes each Fed official’s short-term interest rate projection for the year, is one guidepost that provides some insight into the Fed’s thinking and expectations for the economy at large. The most recent Dot Plot suggests the Fed expects the federal funds interest rate to decrease 0.75 percentage points in 2024 with the caveat that inflation and economic growth will gradually slow. Over the next three years, the Dot Plot forecasts a decrease of 300 basis points (or 3 percent). Although it is an imperfect crystal ball as it’s only a snapshot in time of the Fed presidents’ thinking, it provides confidence rates will head down and not up.
How does that translate to aircraft financing? According to a study commissioned by Airbus Corporate Jets, eight of 10 U.S.-based business aviation financiers and private jet brokers expect access to business aviation financing to increase over the next three years. Some 98% of survey respondents believe business aviation finance rates are still attractive, and it is better to use credit when buying an aircraft than tying up capital.
Jim Blessing, president of AirFleet Capital Inc., is one of the leading finance providers in the single-pilot, high-performance piston and turbine market. In a recent conversation with him, he told me financial market liquidity has been good and will continue to be so, indicating that access to financing is readily available. “We’re expecting some modest decreases in interest rates this year now that inflation is better controlled. The indicators are encouraging.”
In other positive news, he said he’s not seeing changes in cash or credit tightening from where they stand today. “The sweet spot for the single-pilot aircraft buyer is $7.5 million and below.”
Data-driven Safety Management
Many of the safety and risk management tools and practices used by Part 121 for years are now finding their way into the owner-flown market. The goal: to improve pilot performance, reduce deviations from standard operating procedures, and ultimately reduce accidents.
TBMOPA, the owners’ group for TBM aircraft, formally started the trend by introducing a FOQA (flight operational quality assurance) program in 2017 to track landing performance, focusing on reducing runway excursions, prop strikes, and other landing mishaps.
Last year, the Citation Jet Pilots Association rolled out its CJP-FOQA program in partnership with CloudAhoy (now ForeFlight). The program gathers flight data from each flight, analyzes it, and then provides pilots post-flight feedback. As an organization, CJP is aggregating trend data to develop a big-picture view of how the fleet is performing. CJP recorded more than 5,000 flights by its members using the data-gathering program. Focusing on the approach-to-landing phase of flight, the system provides objective feedback to the pilot, which they can use to improve and/or address in training.
Some trends are starting to emerge: Regarding unstable approaches, CJP members are flying better than the industry standard. But, on visual approaches, the data indicates exceedances, such as high sink rates. All this helps inform CJP on areas to focus their educational content on and how to help their pilots fly safer.
Look for other owner groups to jump on the bandwagon with similar programs. If you don’t have access or don’t want to participate in a formal program, check out ForeFlight’s CloudAhoy as a flight debrief tool to get an objective and quantitative review of how you’re flying. For example, you can check your lateral and vertical accuracy and how stabilized your approach was and compare your path to the published approach using a 2D and 3D overlay. It even gives you a “segment score,” highlighting problem areas you can address in future training or on your next flight. Go to ForeFlight.com to learn more.
Hangar Capacity
Go to any general aviation airport near an urban area, and you’ll find hangar space in high demand and short supply. Many have waiting lists that stretch for years, and few FBOs are adding community hangar space. I spoke to airport directors in the mid-size metro area where I live, and they said the challenges are multi-faceted: the costs associated with site development and building materials have dramatically increased since COVID. And then there are costs associated with insurance, engineering, and building code compliance. A private developer at a local airport near me has been trying to build a big-box, community-type hangar for several years and has been stymied by the city’s bureaucratic approval process and architectural code requirements, such as having the street-facing façade be constructed with brick and other eye-pleasing features you’d see in a retail development. (The airport is located in an industrial park setting.) The excess cost for those demands upset the financial equation for that developer.
And if you can get a hangar built, there is concern about recouping the development costs at lease rates that are palatable to the local market. Many times, those are grossly mismatched.
Some airports are under siege from anti-airport activists originating from nearby homeowners and developers eyeing the prime real estate on which the airport resides. Recently in the news, homeowners near the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (KBJC) near Denver sued the county over what they define as violations of airspace, lead emissions, and decreased property values. The outcome of that lawsuit won’t be known for some time, but we can be assured it’s being watched by other anti-airport groups nationwide. All of this will have a chilling effect on new hangar builds at many airports where urban development has filled in around the property.
In this column, I didn’t cover it all. Other simmering topics facing general aviation include the progress (or lack thereof) of an unleaded avgas replacement, the long-term
FAA reauthorization bill before Congress, and the airlines’ perennially favorite activity of targeting GA as a source of its ills.
What aviation plans do you have for the new year? Here’s to a safe, turbulent-free year of flying!
