At the General Aviation Manufacturer’s Association state of the industry press conference GAMA president Pete Bunce and GAMA chairman Steve Taylor, who is president of Boeing Business Jets, shared a promising picture of the health of the GA manufacturing sector in 2013, with overall sales experiencing a modest bump in activity and sales of high-end bizjets and piston airplanes having a great year.
Total worldwide GA airplane shipments were up 4.3 percent, from 2,164 airplanes delivered in 2012 to 2,256 shipments in 2013. The even better news is that billings for GA airplanes worldwide also increased 24 percent, to $23.4 billion.
GAMA reported that shipments of single- and twin-engine turboprops were positive, growing 3.7 percent and 45.7 percent respectively with the success of the Beechcraft King Air and its more than 130 sales, leading the way. In all, turboprop sales rose from 584 airplanes in 2012 to 645 units in 2013, a better than 10 percent increase. Piston-engine airplanes increased to 933 units for the year (to a great extent on the strength of Cirrus SR22 sales), up 2.7 percent from 2012. Still, it was just a third of the business the segment recorded as recently as 2006.
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