A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Senior Editor

Curt Epstein

Despite a softening U.S. economy and soaring fuel prices, demand for business jets and turboprops remains strong, according to the latest delivery report from the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA). The trade association announced a record-setting first half of the year, with total industry shipments (including the slumping piston segment) rising by 1.6 percent and billings increasing nearly 25 percent over the same period last year, totaling more than $12 billion. “Expanding worldwide markets are having a positive effect on the turbine segments of our industry,” said Pete Bunce, GAMA’s president and CEO.
Leading the charge was the business jet category, where deliveries rose nearly 40 percent over the same period last year, for a record 663 aircraft. The sector was buoyed by Eclipse Aviation, which despite delays in reaching its predicted full production levels delivered 112 EA-500 VLJs during the first half of the year. This placed newcomer Eclipse comfortably in the lead for deliveries of one model, but old hands such as Cessna delivered more airplanes in total. Nearly every single jet airframer experienced a double-digit increase in output. Cessna saw its first-half tally rise from 163 aircraft last year to 213 so far this year, spurred in part by its boosting Citation Mustang VLJ production from 10 to 34 aircraft, while Bombardier doubled Learjet 60 output to 16 aircraft in the first half of this year.
While not as robust, the turboprop market also had solid growth, with an overall increase in shipments of nearly 20 percent (15.5 percent for the pressurized turboprops that appear in our chart). Italian airframer Piaggio, which has experienced spotty production rates in the past, more than doubled the output of its Avanti II twin pusher from six to 13, while Hawker Beechcraft increased King Air production, shipping 17 more of the twin turboprops in the first half of this year.
The overall industry increase came despite the continuing slump in the piston segment, which saw a more than 15-percent decrease in deliveries during the first half of this year, declining to 1,034 aircraft from 1,226 in the same period last year.

Clear skies for bizjet and turboprop deliveries

Despite a softening U.S.

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