NAFA members, Mark Bloomer and Brant Dahlfors, co-founders of Jet Transactions, share the Q4 2018 Market Update.
2018 continued its upward trend and ended the year with both new and used deliveries and orders up over 2017. However, the big-bang Q4, that so many projected, seemed to be over by mid-November aided by an increasingly caustic political environment, slowing GDP (worldwide), wild stock market gyrations and finally the threat of a Government shut down that materialized by the end of the Qtr. It wasn’t a bad quarter, it just wasn’t a great quarter as buyer caution outweighed the tax benefit fueled activity, which we began seeing in Q2 & Q3. The caution was also evident in aircraft activity which on a whole was down 0.5% Year over Year according to flight tracking data from Argus International.
The future remains exciting nonetheless. We saw new certifications in 2018 of the G500 and Global 7500. 2019 will celebrate more exciting aircraft with the G600, Global 5500/6500 and Embraer Praetor 400/500 all due for certification. We expect 2019 to be a tougher growth year as new models will be in low ramp up production rates and the inventory of later model pre-owned aircraft remain low.
How does this affect the Gulfstream pre-owned market? Q4-18 saw a nice jump in activity for both pre-owned and new sales, with an 18% and 63% rise respectively. The G500 is now in service and in the hands of customers both domestically and abroad, and the G600 should be entering service later this year. Owners can look forward to the impressive speed capabilities of both aircraft combined with the legendary Gulfstream cabins. Across the pre-owned market, inventory levels rose roughly 4%, with all tracked models remaining below 10% of the fleet for sale. GIV-SP’s and G450’s saw an amazing year for pre-owned sales, while the newer and larger G650 and G650ER’s slowed down to round out the year.
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This article was originally published by Jet Transactions on January 21, 2019.
