Finance

A decade of low interest rates on aircraft loans continues to stimulate aircraft sales, but worries about inflation are pushing rates up, says Airfleet Capital, a leading aircraft lender. While no spikes are expected short term, the market is definitely headed higher, says Airfleet’s Jim Blessing in this podcast recorded at Sun ‘n Fun 2018. […]

In its 20th annual “Turbine-Powered Civil Helicopter Purchase Outlook,” released in late February 2018, Honeywell forecasts 4,000 to 4,200 new civilian-use helicopters will be delivered from 2018 to 2022. Honeywell says they feel a better long-term global economic outlook this year means customers are holding firm in their intentions to invest in new helicopter purchases. […]

An international game of cat and mouse has the Canadian government pitted against a wealthy South African family at the center of a political corruption scandal and the disappearance of their luxury business jet. Now Canada’s state-owned Export Development Bank is trying to repossess the 2014 Bombardier Global 6000 saying it’s owed $27 million of […]

While the National Airspace System remains open and accessible to all aircraft, the government shutdown, which began Saturday morning, could affect thousands of owners, operators and pilots if it persists. Air traffic control and all the associated operations are designated as essential services but most of the FAA’s ground-bound services will be shuttered during the […]

The new federal tax regulations that will take effect on Jan. 1 are mainly good news for aviation, according to AOPA and NBAA. The legislation passed this week will “directly lead to growth for the general aviation industry,” said NBAA President Ed Bolen. For example, the new rules allow for “immediate expensing,” Bolen said, which […]

With all the new avionics we reported on here at AVweb and at sister publication Aviation Consumer magazine the past year, some readers have asked for my market predictions for the new year. Will there be more growth? Less expensive new products? Will 2018 be a bust? During my 27 years of work in the […]

It almost invariably starts out simply. A half dozen or so pilots who are connected in some fashion—work, school, neighborhood, FBO customers—get to talking, and complaining, about their desire to fly more and the barriers to doing so. Most often the barrier is cost, sometimes it’s difficulty scheduling at the local flight school, others it’s […]

While regional airlines seem to be the hardest hit so far by the tightening supply of pilots, business aircraft operators are also feeling the pinch. As with the regionals, deep-pocketed larger airlines are outbidding smaller operators for the pool of experienced jet pilots and there is an inevitable result from that. “It’s really a buyers’ […]

If I were an airplane salesman, I would starve to death. Airplanes that I think have no prayer of selling fly out of the factory almost faster than they can be produced. One of these was Diamond’s DA42, which I thought was a long shot. The DA62, one of the best GA airplanes ever, in […]

There are only some 200,000 aircraft in the U.S.—there are more cars than that in a large town—so why any profit-oriented insurer would enter such a restricted market seems to defy logic. Yet, in the last decade, the number of aviation insurance underwriters has gone from the old, hard core of nine to 14, an […]