I recently spoke to an aviation lawyer and we lamented the difficulty of buying a used business jet in the current environment. We should forget about prices that are constantly rising, because this is a real manifestation of high demand and low supply. The real problem is the process during the transaction.

Even with this unprecedented price level, sellers are now also demanding a significant reduction in closing times, mainly making it impossible to perform a comprehensive pre-purchase check or even offer to conduct a transaction without verification.   

So if a buyer hires an aviation broker and/or attorney, and sellers try to steer them away from these processes and even leave them sitting on the sidelines for months, then watching what I think is inevitable — changing the market based on so many factors — will be good for buyers.

I must say that when we are hired as brokers by sellers in the current market, we receive assurances from them that they will allow a more understandable and familiar process, including full pre-purchase checks. After all, if buyers are willing to pay, which is also a factor in today’s market, there’s no reason for the seller not to allow full pre-purchase background checks combined with higher prices.

If enough buyers start to sit around waiting, sellers will not benefit from today’s prices. Buyers will simply wait until two things happen - lower prices and the usual and familiar buying processes. Until then, nobody wins.

Good buyers don’t buy what they really want, and sellers don’t sell what their goal is. You might think that’s not the case, but more and more aircraft are on the market, and exposure times for many of them are increasing.

Creating stagnation is bad for business. Creating unbalanced transactions is also bad not only in the short term, but also for the long-term viability of our industry.

As managers of our industry, we must take the lead on our path to success. After all, who better than us can provide this leadership? Those people who are still increasing demand will not all leave, even in a situation where the market may be weakened by external factors such as fuel prices, interest rates, the threat of recession and geopolitical events. Many of the new buyers, as well as corporate operators, will still be looking to buy or upgrade their existing fleet.

I’m glad to see the corporate operators coming back. They have been sitting in this process for a long time, caused by the pandemic. They start flying again and will definitely come back.

This will add additional aircraft to the range, which will help alleviate the situation of high demand and low supply. This is another reason why more sellers need to look to the future and start creating healthy paths to a successful deal on their own.

My letters and speeches are, frankly, designed to mitigate what I think will be a shift in our market. The pendulum always swings back. As trusted consultants, we need to do our part to lead clients to this position. This is good for all of us, as well as the entire community of buyers and sellers.

Well, here's another summer. I hope we all start to look out a little bit more, travel a little more and enjoy a safer environment inside and outside of our industry.