Business jet deliveries and total airplane billings decreased year-over-year for the first three quarters of 2016, according to statistics released today by the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA). Overall, 429 new business jets were handed over in the first three quarters, compared with 465 in the first nine months of 2015, a decrease of 7.7 percent. At the same time, billings shrank by more than $2 billion, more than 14 percent off from last year’s third-quarter tally of $15.7 billion.
    “There’s no way to sugarcoat the fact that these numbers are not what we had wanted to see,” said GAMA president and CEO Pete Bunce. “Unfortunately, they reflect the instability of the used aircraft market coupled with complicated global economic and geopolitical factors. What is encouraging is that every GAMA member that is a piston and turbine airplane and rotorcraft manufacturer has a new product development program recently completed or currently under way, so optimism for the future runs high.”

    The high-end turboprop sector, however, saw some improvement year-over-year. OEMs delivered 187 pressurized turboprops in the first three quarters, compared with 181 in the same period last year, an increase of 3.3 percent. The rotorcraft market continued its recent slide, with the number of helicopter deliveries through the first nine months of the year falling nearly 6.9 percent year-over-year.