GAMA Year-End: Bizjet Delivery Skid Stopped in 2013

Every year since the start of the great economic downturn of 2008, the business aviation industry has watched business jet deliveries dwindle and searched for signs that the market might have finally hit bottom. The downward slide was finally arrested last year, according to year-end numbers released last month by the General Aviation Manufacturers Association. For the first time since 2008, worldwide deliveries of business jets were higher than the previous year, with manufacturers handing over 678 jets last year, six aircraft (1 percent) more than in 2012. Of those 678 business jets, 52.4 percent went to North American customers. Pressurized turbine aircraft deliveries rose by more than 6 percent overall, buoyed by the turboprop segment, which saw a year-over-year gain of nearly 24 percent.