Report: Demand for preowned business aircraft peaked in September

Las Vegas-based Asset Insight issued its Asset Insight AI² Market Report examining activity in 134 fixed-wing aircraft models and 2,247 individual sales listings on October 23, finding that transactions were up 71 percent during the third quarter in a “dramatic flurry of activity.”

Asking prices increased for medium jets and turboprops, were flat for small jets, and were down for large jets. The quarter’s 10.1-percent asking-price increases in the medium jet group—which includes the Beechjet 400, the Challenger 300, and several Hawker-series aircraft, among others—was marked by the 12-month high of 5.5 percent in September.

Still, the upbeat demand figures in the year of the coronavirus pandemic were lower than the third quarter of 2019.

“While activity in the preowned business aircraft market is at its peak for the year, we still have a lot of ground to make up in these COVID-19 times,” said Tony Kioussis, president of Asset Insight, in an October 23 news release.

With buyers showing preference for lower-time, higher-quality aircraft, remaining inventory was averaging higher “days on market available for sale,” a quantitative measure Asset Insight employs in several ratios used in its analyses.

Average days on market of the tracked fleet increased from 319 days in the second quarter of 2020 to 339 days in the third quarter, a 6.2-percent rise, the report said.

Asset Insight also announced launching a new podcast series covering the Aircraft Ownership Lifecycle, offering more than 20 episodes and topics of interest to “aircraft buyers, sellers, owners, operators, experienced industry professionals, and those new to the industry.” The podcasts are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, the Asset Insight website, the podcast webpage, and other podcast sources.

Asset Insight employs a proprietary asset-grading system process to provide “a broad spectrum of machinery and equipment valuation services.” The company has been involved in thousands of aircraft appraisals, from light single-engine to heavy airline transport aircraft, the news release said.