The flow of used aircraft to the market is slowing fairly dramatically, and some may wonder if that’s because all the aircraft for sale are already on the market. It might seem that way to some, but the more than 3,000 aircraft for sale right now–while not an insignificant number–represent only a fraction of the more than 16,500 jets currently in operation. Consider that of the roughly 3,000 for sale, nearly half were delivered before 1990 and fewer than 900 were delivered this decade.
The net increase in used jets to the market in the last three months is about 131, which is less than half of the previous average for the last nine months. In fact, during September, October and November more than 500 jets were added to the
used market and consequently values got slammed. Unheard-of, unimagined pricing took hold of the used market during the last quarter of last year, when activity
was at a veritable standstill. One benefit to such a violent correction, if it had to come, was that it condensed the price-slide time frame to months, which presumably brought buyers back into the market sooner than during some less dramatic downturns, which ratcheted down smaller percentage amounts but over a longer period of time.
