Jetcraft shares market intelligence at Corporate Jet Investor conference

Insight abounded at the recent Corporate Jet Investor conference in London, with representatives from across business aviation coming together to share their observations on the industry.

Opening the first day of the conference, Jetcraft’s president Chad Anderson set out a confident forecast for the next ten years, hailing it as ‘a new beginning’ for the industry.

“We’re entering 2018 looking at the glass half full,” he announced. “Based on our forecast, I’d say buyer confidence is going to maintain well into a new business cycle – and the optimism should remain until 2024 or 2025.”

In today’s market, says Anderson, “Pre-owned aircraft values decline at a far less rapid rate. Transaction volume has increased. Inventory levels are as low as they’ve been since 2007.” With the market back to pre-recession levels, and a normal depreciation curve, businesses can expect consistent growth for the first time in a decade – an upbeat way to begin the next ten years.

Watch Chad Anderson’s opening speech here.

Later in the day, Peter Antonenko, Chief Operating Officer at Jetcraft, moderated an expert panel of industry lawyers and aircraft brokers to discuss reducing ‘transaction fatigue’. Both buyers and sellers can suffer from ‘transaction fatigue’ when a sales process gets too drawn out, causing a deal to break down.

“A transaction is like a shark – it’s got to keep swimming to stay alive,” explained Mark Bisset, Clyde & Co. “The last thing you want as a lawyer is to be accused of killing the shark.”

Under Antonenko’s guidance, the panel ultimately agreed on how best to tackle ‘transaction fatigue’ – by ensuring there is a consensus on who’s doing what during a transaction. “We need to keep it simple,” confirmed Alireza Ittihadieh, Freestream.

See Peter Antonenko’s panel discussion here.

On the second day of the conference, David Dixon, President, Jetcraft Asia, offered his view on the Asia-Pacific market during a panel discussion entitled ‘MINTS, BRICS and other growth markets’.

While China is often the first place that comes to mind, Dixon said that APAC goes “from Mongolia to Melbourne”, and each area is different. It is a rapidly growing market, where customers have gone from being first-time buyers to first-time sellers over the last few years.

This means that the market is growing in both directions, for buyers and sellers – a fact Dixon is eager to communicate to the US and Europe. “I’ve got a fascinating market,” he said, “and I’m keen to educate what we call ‘mature’ markets what Asia’s all about.”

To hear more from Dixon, see his panel discussion here.