NAFA member Kitchel Gifford, Executive Director at Holstein Aviation, shares his recent blog about why younger aircraft are hard to find.
The business jet market Q2 2026 numbers, released by Global Jet Capital in its latest Business Aviation Market Brief, tell a story of a market that looks healthy on the surface and gets more interesting the closer you look. Backlogs are up. Departures are up. But the real headline sits underneath those numbers: the aircraft actually available to buy right now skew older than they have in years, and the newer aircraft buyers actually want are getting harder to find.
Backlogs and Deliveries Are Both Climbing
Combined OEM order backlogs reached $66.8 billion in the second quarter, up 20.4% year over year. Book to bill ratios remain above 1 to 1 across the major manufacturers, meaning new orders are coming in faster than aircraft are being delivered against them. That is pushing lead times on new aircraft out to 18 to 26 months on average, with some models running longer.
Deliveries are still growing alongside that backlog. H1 2026 deliveries among the top five OEMs were up 4.5% year over year, so manufacturers are not falling behind, they are simply being asked for more than ever before.
This article was originally published by Holstein Aviation on August 31, 2026.