The last few years have been hectic for the private aviation industry, particularly around various forms of supply and demand — especially for aircraft sales, refurbishing older aircraft and the supply chain. We sat down with Gregg Brunson-Pitts, founder and chief executive officer of charter broker Advanced Aviation Team, to delve into the market and what the future looks like.
As with elsewhere in the industry, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated change within the business aviation world. Indeed, Brunson-Pitts tells us, “there’s been a lot of upside for a while, but I think COVID definitely accelerated a lot of opportunity and revealed a lot of the opportunity for a lot of people in the industry, from operators, to crews, to brokers, to parts manufacturers.”
At the same time, challenges remain, some of which are interlinked and work reciprocally. One particular hurdle to the industry at the moment is production constraints at airframers, combined with a lack of capacity in the overhaul part of the maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) sector. Both are linked to supply chain shortages — sometimes for the same kind of item, sometimes for different items — especially around certain parts.
These shortages led to a key question for operators, especially those contracting via the charter market: should they keep their aircraft operating with its current configuration and perhaps older cabin, or should they try to have the cabin overhauled to raise the price point — but perhaps encounter unexpected delays owing to supply chain shortages?
“There was a problem getting wheels. I’m pretty sure there was a problem getting leather for seats,” explains Brunson-Pitts.
The dynamic was complicated, and prevented some of the MRO efficiencies that owners and operators were used to, he says: “they would put the aircraft down for some of these heavy maintenance checks. Then supply chain issues were impacting some of their [cabin interior] refurbs or wifi installs. That was also impacting some of the aircraft supply issues as well.”
This led to a number of availability crunches across the industry. At some points, he recalls, it was hard enough “just finding an available aircraft for our customers. That’s eased a little bit.”
Some of this easing comes from greater production of the types of aircraft that are most in demand, including the super-mid-size and ultra-long-range segments.
When it comes to the aircraft that are particularly attractive at the moment, Brunson-Pitts cites “Bombardier with their Global products, the 7500s, Gulfstream with the 700 and the 800 coming… we work with a lot of ultra-long-range aircraft and clients who need those products.”
A substantial portion of the charter market continues to heavily prefer either brand-new or very newly refurbished aircraft. In particular, aircraft with the latest connectivity technology, specifically those that can handle streaming to the aircraft, whether for videoconferencing or simply for content consumption, are in high demand.
Looking to the industry’s future, challenges include consolidation, and in some cases over-consolidation that reduces competition in what has historically been a fairly competitive market, whether in providers, fixed-base operators (FBOs), or the MRO outfits either associated with those FBOs or operating independently.
“There’s been a lot of consolidation amongst aircraft providers, and so into larger companies — larger companies who continue to control the aircraft fleet, which, over time, I think, isn’t good for consumer choice,” Brunson-Pitts says.
However, he notes, in the absence of a major global or regional downturn, “as long as economic conditions remain strong, I think that the market will be there for people to charter planes.”
Author: John Walton
Published 16 May 2023
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