Private-Jet Market Roars to Life and Planemakers Can’t Keep Up
- Industry sees strongest demand since the Great Recession
- Builders rolling out new jets with lots of bells and whistles
Kenn Ricci, the chairman of Flexjet and a 30-year veteran of the private-plane business, says he’s struggling like never before to find planes to expand his fleet.
Aircraft manufacturers will just laugh if a buyer requests a new plane to be delivered within the next six months and the used market has been picked clean, according to Ricci. Flexjet has locked in purchases of 65 aircraft over the next 12 months to expand the fleet by 40%. And that’s after the company suspended sales of blocks of flight hours because it simply couldn’t keep up with demand.