Avionics News May 2023 - 24

GENERAL AVIATION THRIVES DESPITE HEADWINDS
Continued from page 23
is not going to be as cheap as avgas is right now. " Meanwhile
a lot of communities are using leaded fuel as an issue to try to
close airports.
In San Jose, California, local officials have been trying
to close the Reid-Hillview Airport for a long time. And
when noise didn't do it, they are turning to leaded fuel
before the general aviation industry is ready to transition to
unleaded fuel.
In the business jet market, 712 jets delivered in 2022 came
with just two more aircraft sold than in 2021. Total billings
rose 4.5% to $19.8 billion. North America accounted for
the lion's share of business with almost 69.9% of deliveries.
Bunce said this should come as no surprise because " we have
the infrastructure here (in the United States) to be able to let
those aircraft do their missions and do them extremely well. "
Europe comes in second at 11.8% of deliveries, and the
Asia Pacific percentage of the market has grown and is now
5.7%. " If you look at the business jet segments (by weight),
it is the mids that are carrying the load, " Bunce said. More
than twice the number of mid-size jets in the 12,500- to
50,000-pound category were sold (359 aircraft) than jets
12,500 pounds and less (147 aircraft) and more than 206 of
the larger jets in the 50,000-pound-plus category.
The turboprop market continues to recover from a dip in
shipments during the pandemic, and the increase in aircraft
deliveries rose 10.4% from 2021 to 2022 to reach 582 aircraft.
Billings also rose substantially by 15.1% to $2 billion. An
interesting trend is that aircraft owner/pilots are increasingly
moving from single-engine piston aircraft to buy a singleengine
turboprop instead of moving to a piston twin. This
trend is fueling an opportunity for future growth in the singleengine
turboprop category. There is a strong market in Latin
America for turboprops with 18% of deliveries compared to
55% in the United States.
The industry shipped 194 piston-powered helicopters in
2022 (up 7.2% from 2021) and 682 with turbine power (up
7.6% from 2021). Both segments bounced back starting in
2021 after a double-digit drop in shipments in the pandemic
year of 2020.
In 2022, piston helicopter billings rose nearly 10% above
2021 to $88.3 million. Bunce pointed out that this fleet also
has to transition to unleaded fuel in the near future, along with
piston-powered fixed-wing aircraft. Turbine helicopter market
billings rose 4.4% from 2021 to 2022 to reach $3.6 billion
(not including Leonardo's results, which are reported after
GAMA's state of the industry press briefing).
One of the biggest issues facing the general aviation
industry is the environmental movement, particularly in
24 avionics news * may 2023
Europe where it has been singled out due to its impact on
the climate. " I think the reason they single it out is because
they perceive that only a few relatively wealthy, elite people
benefit from it, " Hinson said. " That is an incomplete picture
of general aviation. I think it's incumbent on all of us to make
sure we communicate that to make sure people understand
that general aviation is much broader than just moving
people from point A to B. Sure we do that, but in many cases,
we're flying to airports not served by scheduled service, and
there are so many other things that general aviation does. "
Of course general aviation aircraft also move cargo, fight
wildfires, perform air ambulance and emergency response
missions, and disaster relief among other tasks.
Bunce noted that if the business jet segment is under attack,
it will affect the supply chain for general aviation because
everything is interlinked. " Whether we are doing firefighting
or EMS, it will be negatively impacted by that reduction in
supply chain just as our business jet supply chain is impacted
by our commercial brethren. We are one big ecosystem that
depend on one another. "
Jens Hennig, GAMA vice president of operations, said later
in an AEA podcast hosted by Avionics News editor Geoff Hill,
that every GAMA member is actively engaged in managing
every layer of its own supply chain to make sure that no
airplane delivery is " held up because one widget is not in
place. " Some component suppliers have closed up shop, and
OEMs have had to scramble to find new ones. " An airplane
is simply a compilation of thousands of parts needed to
make it through the production cycles. If it is made of 1,000
parts, you can't deliver it to the customer with 999 of them
in place, " Hennig said. Problems became the norm in 2021
and 2022 but are improving as 2023 begins. " But they are
certainly not going to go away, " Hennig said.
General aviation also has a much broader reach than
commercial airline aircraft that provide scheduled service to
about 400 airports. Bunce noted 76% of 324 airports in the
U.S. have lost some commercial service since the pandemic
hit with 14 of those airports losing all service and 60 losing
half of their service. Meanwhile, general aviation is able to
operate out of 4,500 public use airports, and in some cases,
to as many as 14,800 private airports. Flight Aware provided
data to GAMA for the first 10 days of February showing
general aviation (not including helicopters) averaged 45,000
daily flights in the United States including Alaska and Hawaii.
On average, those 45,000 flights connected to 5,000 airports.
With the coming of eVTOL aircraft and multipurpose
civil drones, general aviation is now more than ever an
incubator of new technology. " The pace is increasing, and
the efficiency is going up dramatically in all of these new
products being developed, " Bunce said. This includes
sustainable aviation fuel, advanced structures, new engines
Avionics News May 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Avionics News May 2023
