Business Aviation Outlook for 2026

The introduction of new models, return of 100% bonus depreciation, increased flight hours and otherwise solid demand for new and pre-owned business aircraft are driving a robust market.

Flight hours by corporate, fractional, charter and privately operated business aircraft continued to soar in 2025 and are predicted to be steady in 2026. Manufacturers’ order backlogs, which extend 18-24 months, have brought them better pricing along with a boost to buying decisions.

“We’re sold out on every product we make,” Textron Aviation President and CEO Ron Draper said in October. “We’re trying to increase production—carefully—to meet that demand.”

• Business aviation outlook for 2026 predicts growth
• Flight hours surge with demand
• 100% depreciation return provides boost

Business aviation continues to attract new entrants at higher numbers, although the figures are down from the record levels during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s notable to us that right after COVID—when the entire industry saw a demand none of us have seen before, including quite an influx of new buyers—some of the highest numbers you saw on a percentage basis [that] were as much as 40% were new to aviation,” says Todd Simmons, president of customer experience at Cirrus Aircraft. After declining to about 25%—still about double pre-pandemic figures—that number has ticked up to as much as 35% over the past 12 months.

“I’m not a politician, but I think there’s been some settling with the current administration, whether that’s with tariffs [or] that’s with policy,” Simmons says. “If there was any hesitancy with the initial part of the administration, I think now you’ve just seen customers say, ‘At some point, this is all going to shake out.’”

Corporate buyers are refocusing on their businesses and adding aircraft, or in cases of personal usage, moving forward with the purchase of an aircraft, he says.

Both flight hours and new deliveries are higher than in 2024 and up dramatically from pre-pandemic levels. Fractional flight hours rose 12% during the third quarter of 2025 compared with the same period a year ago, and were up 71% over 2019, according to the Aviation Week Network’s Tracked Aircraft Utilization data. Corporate flight hours rose 5% year over year and 16% compared with 2019, while private owners flew 4% more in the third quarter compared with a year ago and 37% more than in 2019.

During the first nine months of 2025, manufacturers delivered 787 business aircraft, including 557 business jets and 228 turboprops, up from 751 in the first nine months of 2024 and 545 during the same period in 2000, according to Aviation Week data.

Looking ahead, Aviation Week Network analysts project manufacturers to deliver more than 9,000 new business jets over the next 10 years, an average of 900 jets per year and up from an average of about 700 per year in 2017-25. They also forecast deliveries of more than 2,600 turboprops during the next decade for a total of 11,300 aircraft valued at $289.9 billion.

Small jets are expected to make up 31% of the business jet market over the next 10 years, followed by large and ultra-large jets with 24% and midsize and super-midsize jets with 22%, the forecast says.

North America is expected to remain the dominant market for business aviation and account for 69% of all projected deliveries during the next decade. Western Europe comes in second with 13% of all deliveries, followed by Latin America with 10% and the Asia-Pacific region with 3%, the forecast says.

The global in-service business aviation fleet, meanwhile, is projected to grow to more than 35,730 aircraft in 2026 to more than 40,500 by the end of 2035—the last year of the forecast period—with a 1.4% compound annual in-service growth rate.

About 80% of new Cirrus Vision SF50 jets are sold in the U.S. But markets outside the U.S. have shifted in the past 24 months, something not unique to Cirrus, Simmons says. “We now see Brazil as a country being almost as strong as the entire European continent,” he notes.

Brazil has stabilized somewhat socio-politically, Simmons says, and the country has fewer environmental and sustainability pressures than Europe.

“In Europe, that’s a real issue,” he says, arguing that pressures will continue until the region recognizes the value of general aviation to the economy, small businesses, humanitarian efforts, search and rescue, law enforcement and other areas. “I think Europe’s got to figure that out.”

Passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) by the U.S. Congress reinstated 100% depreciation for qualified new and used business aircraft, which allows owners to deduct a large portion of the purchasing cost of certain assets the year they are put into operation, as long as they are used for business purposes at least 50% of the time. This incentive is giving the industry a boost. However, with long waits for new aircraft deliveries, Draper does not expect the change to spur sales in that segment. But he notes that it will drive more activity in the pre-owned market, especially for younger aircraft, where inventory is already tight. “So it’s a very, very healthy market right now,” he says.

Supply chain issues have improved, although bottlenecks and capacity constraints continue, manufacturers report. “Everybody’s been saying, ‘Well, it’s better than it was three years ago, two years ago,’” Draper says. “That’s true. . . . It still takes 100% of the parts to build an airplane, so it’s 80% better. And when we drive upstream into why some subtier suppliers are struggling, it often comes down to labor and capacity in their facility. . . . There’s still some choke points, and we just work through them.”

Those constraints may have the upside of discouraging manufacturers from overproduction.

This year started off slowly. “The consumers and the trade alike waited out 2024 because of it being an election year with high hopes for the installation of the now current administration and what comes with that,” explains Janine Iannarelli, founder and president of brokerage Par Avion. “The expectation was tax benefits for the aviation industry.”

What was unexpected at the start of 2025, however, was the delay in the return of 100% depreciation, Iannarelli noted. It was included in the OBBBA, which was signed into law on July 4.

Inventory of pre-owned business aircraft tightened in the third quarter of 2025, and the supply of younger, high-demand models was particularly scarce, the International Aircraft Dealers Association reports. In the third quarter, dealers signed 171 new acquisition agreements, more than a year ago, the group says, noting that dealers are forecasting stable or increased demand in 2026.

In the fractional ownership business, demand remains strong, with no signs of decline, although a “big slowdown” in the business occurred in the first quarter, Airshare CEO John Owen tells Aviation Week. “I think that was all centered around political and economic uncertainty, and we kind of sat around going, ‘Uh-oh, what’s going on?’ And then in April, it’s like the switch flipped again, and everything was back to normal.”

Meanwhile, the charter industry also remains steady, despite challenges such as increased market competition, taxation and tariffs, and talent acquisition and retention. The segment has normalized following a robust post-pandemic spike, says Ryan Waguespack, a U.S. board member with the Air Charter Association. “Now you’re actually having to sell,” he remarks. “And you’ve got a generation of sales teams that really have never had to. Now they’re like, ‘Whoa.’”

Post-pandemic, there has been a new generation of charter customers who are more price-driven, says Kirti Odedra, director of sales for Planet 9 Private Air, which operates ultra-long-range aircraft. There is less flying by investment banks and larger corporations doing site visits, she says. Today, the majority of transatlantic flying is for leisure.

Demographically, fractional and charter customers as well as buyers are becoming younger. “There’s just a lot of wealth out there,” says Lannie O’Bannion, senior vice president of sales and flight operations at Textron Aviation. “Our sales teams are out working those relationships and making sure all of these customers who may not have owned a jet or a turboprop are familiar with who we are.”

Business aviation remains committed to reaching the target of net-zero emissions by 2050, National Business Aviation Association President and CEO Ed Bolen says. The use of sustainable aviation fuel, which can reduce an aircraft’s life-cycle carbon emissions by as much as 80% over traditional fuels, is a key part of the plan, the organization says.

“Sustainable aviation fuel is a key element of our industry’s long-term strategy to reduce emissions,” Bolen says. Book-and-claim and carbon offsets will also play a role.