While overall inventories of pre-owned business aircraft continue to contract, and transaction activity continues to increase year-over-year, the rate of improvement slowed in the third quarter, according to business aviation data company Amstat. The Tinton Falls, N.J.-based firm said the long-hoped-for “broad-based business aircraft resale market recovery still remains elusive.” 

At the end of the third quarter, 13.4 percent of the business jet fleet was on the pre-owned market. Although this was down from 14 percent a year ago, it did mark a slight increase from the 13.3 percent reported at the end of the second quarter. Business jet resale retail transactions were down 0.4 percentage points from the second quarter, settling at 2.4 percent at the end of September.