JIQ Market Barometer | November 2026 | Edition 9

Order Books and Utilization Keep Climbing, but a Normalizing Pre-Owned Market Keep the Recovery Honest

Business jet departures rose 3.5% worldwide over the last twelve months, to just under 4 million. The active fleet is being flown harder than at any point since before the pandemic, the four major OEMs are sitting on record backlogs, and the IMF has nudged its 2026 global growth forecast back up. Through October, business aviation is in a solid position.

That said, the energy shock from earlier this year isn’t done. Crude and jet fuel eased across the spring and summer, then turned higher again. Consumer confidence has slipped back toward its lows, and pre-owned transaction growth, which was running above 15% year-over-year last December, has cooled to a flat market. The Middle East is still well down on the year, activity is running close to 50% below pre-conflict norms, though its monthly declines keep narrowing and recent weeks show tentative signs of recovery.

The full JIQ Market Barometer combines JETNET’s serial-number-level asset data with WINGX’s tail-level flight activity and reconciles the two. All four chapters below use an October 2026 trailing-twelve-month basis.

Richard Koe & Nick Koscinski · WINGX Research · 5 min read

Chapter 01

Macro Climate

The macro picture is holding up, and at the headline level it looks a little better than it did last edition, even though the cross-currents have sharpened. UHNWI wealth and corporate profitability, the two structural drivers of business aviation demand, are still positive and still climbing. Against that, the early-2026 energy shock has flared up again, disinflation has reversed, and consumer confidence is stuck near record lows.

Key Takeaways

• The growth outlook was upgraded. The IMF’s October World Economic Outlook lifted its 2026 global GDP forecast to 3.1%, up a tenth from the 3.0% it had cut to in July, as trade-tension and Middle East conflict risks eased from their peak; the 2027 forecast held at 3.4%.
• The wealth base keeps growing. The UHNWI population reached a record of more than 684,000 in 2025, up from 658,000 a year earlier. It’s projected to grow about 4.3% in 2026 and at a 5.6% CAGR through 2031.
• The biggest untapped pool is outside North America. Against a global benchmark of 26.9 UHNWIs per based jet, North America’s mature base sits at 14.2, since most of that wealth has already converted to ownership. Australasia and APAC runs at 158.6, roughly six times the benchmark and the largest remaining opportunity.
• Corporate profits at record highs. US corporate profits reached a record $4.3 trillion in Q2 2026, up about 28% year-over-year and above the Q1 high.
• The two best demand signals are both still rising. UHNWI population (0.84) and corporate profits (0.83) correlate more closely with bizjet departures than any other structural driver in our dataset.
• Fuel is the clearest downside. Crude and jet fuel had their sharpest move since 2022 around the Strait of Hormuz disruption. Prices eased through the spring and summer, but they have since climbed again, with jet fuel moving first.
• Disinflation has gone into reverse. US inflation has settled back in the mid-3s and the Euro Area has drifted up toward 3%. That undoes earlier progress and limits how far central banks can cut.
• Consumer confidence slipped back. University of Michigan sentiment sits at 48, near historic lows, after its summer recovery faded. It remains the persistent soft spot in an otherwise firm demand picture.

Chapter 02

Aircraft Activity

Executive Summary

Flight activity shows the macro strength turning into real demand, though the 3.5% headline isn’t evenly spread. Demand is concentrating in flexible ownership models and emerging markets while traditional corporate structures shrink. The Middle East is still climbing back from its sharp February reversal.

Key Takeaways

• North America drives a strong headline. Global departures reached 3.98 million on an October 2026 TTM basis, up 3.5%. North America accounted for 71.6% of that activity and grew 4.4%.
• Emerging markets lead the growth rates. Africa posted the fastest TTM growth at 10.4%, continuing its run as the standout emerging market, with Latin America (+3.3%) and Australasia & APAC (+2.3%) also adding. The Middle East is still down 10.1% on the year, with activity close to 50% below pre-conflict norms, though recent weeks show tentative signs of recovery.
• Fractional keeps pulling ahead. Fractional ownership grew 9.5% on a TTM basis and 9.3% year-to-date, and was the only major operator type to grow in October, making it one of the most consistent outperformers across every timeframe.
• Corporate structures are under pressure. Corporate Flight Departments shrank 5.2% on a TTM basis, while Branded Charter was essentially flat. Demand appears to be moving toward fractional programs.
• The fleet is working harder. Average global utilization so far this year is 20.5 hours per tail per month, 11.3% above 2019. Super Midsize jets lead at 29.2 hours.
• The active fleet is growing, but demand is growing faster. The active fleet keeps expanding while hours per tail keep rising, so demand growth continues to outpace supply additions.
• The fleet operator leaders are diverging. NetJets holds 13.5% of global activity, up 9.4%, and Flexjet grew 11.1%. Wheels Up is the exception: down 28.8% on a TTM basis and well below its 2019 traffic.
• Connectivity is still a big advantage. Business aviation serves more than 381,000 unique city pairs, against about 18,100 for the top global airlines combined. That is roughly twenty-one times as many.

Chapter 03

Aircraft Market

Executive Summary

The softening shows up most clearly in the transaction market. Pre-owned velocity has slowed sharply from its late-2025 pace and asking prices are correcting, even as new deliveries keep recovering and OEM order books sit at decade highs.

Key Takeaways

• Deliveries are still recovering. Full-year 2025 deliveries hit a post-GFC high of 814 units, beating the 2019 peak of 804. The 2026 baseline forecast of 830 would be another record, and the top end is near 853, though growth should moderate to around 2% after the near-8% gain in 2025.
• Pre-owned velocity has slowed to a flat market. TTM transactions reached 2,668, essentially unchanged on the prior period and well down from the double-digit growth of full-year 2025. The TTM growth rate cooled from above +15% in December to roughly flat by October.
• Asking prices are settling back toward normal. On a TTM basis, Small Jets averaged $3.54mn (nearly matching 2025) and Medium Jets $5.01mn. Large Jets eased to $15.03mn, continuing a gradual correction after leading the pandemic-era surge.
• Transaction value eased with volume. Total pre-owned transaction value reached $18.59 billion on a TTM basis, with Small and Medium Jet values each down about 11% and Large Jet value close to flat.
• Liquidity depends more and more on age. Average days on market was roughly flat at 93, down 2.2% year-over-year. The newest aircraft (0-5 years) still sell in about 50 days, while older age bands sit well above 100.
• Order books are at decade highs. The four major OEMs have a combined backlog of $63.8 billion. Gulfstream and Bombardier hold roughly 75% of it, and Bombardier’s backlog is up 33.7% year-over-year on strong Global 8000 and Challenger demand.
• Book-to-bill still points to expansion. Bombardier ran at 1.7x in Q3 2026, with Gulfstream and Embraer at 1.4x. All four manufacturers grew their backlogs, extending production visibility into 2027-28.
• Fractional providers are taking a bigger share of new aircraft. Program holders took 17% of new deliveries so far in 2026, up from 10% before the pandemic. End users are still the largest buyers at 65%.

Chapter 04

Aircraft Inventory

Executive Summary

Supply is what offsets the normalization on the demand side. Transactions have slowed, but for-sale inventory isn’t rebuilding. It keeps drifting lower as a share of the fleet, which keeps the market seller-friendly. The inventory base is also getting older, and a retirement wave looks increasingly likely.

Key Takeaways

• Supply and demand are roughly balanced. About 1,728 aircraft were for sale in a typical month against 2,668 TTM transactions. That is a modest easing from full-year 2025, which had about 1,835 aircraft in inventory and nearly 2,970 transactions.
• Inventory is still tight by historical standards. The inventory-to-transaction ratio is about 0.65:1, well below the levels typical of the 2013-2019 market.
• The for-sale share keeps falling. Inventory dropped to 6.6% of the operational fleet on a TTM basis, down from 7.3% last year and far below the 9-12% range of the previous decade.
• The market is splitting into two tiers by age. Aircraft 16 years or older now make up 74% of for-sale inventory, up from 70% a year ago and 57% in 2015. The newest aircraft are just 6% of listings.
• The fleet has grown steadily for 25 years. The global installed fleet has more than doubled since 2001, from about 11,000 aircraft to roughly 25,700, a 3.4% CAGR that held through several cycles on resilient demand and very few retirements.
• Low retirements are storing up future supply. Scrappage is still running around 1% of the fleet (253 units in the TTM), below historical norms. A growing base of 1990s and 2000s aircraft is nearing the end of its economic life, so a retirement wave is probably coming.

Bizjets only; turboprops excluded. Data through October 2026 unless otherwise noted. Sources: JETNET; WINGX; Global ATC and ADSB records; FRED; IMF; Knight Frank; company filings. 2026 figures may be subject to revision as transactions and deliveries are reported and verified.

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These four findings are a starting point. The full report covers what each of the trends means for aircraft that operators are planning to buy or sell, and what the regional breakdown of where business aviation is growing and where it is contracting tells you about market positioning heading into H3 2026.

• 75 pages of structured analysis combining JETNET transaction and inventory data with WINGX global flight intelligence
• Sections: Macro Climate, Aircraft Activity, Aircraft Market, Aircraft Inventory
• Sources: JETNET, WINGX, IMF, FRED, Knight Frank, OEM Filings
• Includes OEM backlog, operator rankings, corridor data, fleet utilisation, and pricing trends