The preowned business jet market loosened a tiny bit in May with the number of aircraft for sale up 2 percent from April. However, the market remains much tighter than a year ago, with the number of preowned business jets for sale in May down by 51 percent, equating to a 2.4 percent available inventory, according to market analyst Jefferies, citing Amstat figures.

Looking at younger business jets, those less than seven years since production, the available inventory dropped 53 percent year-over-year, while pricing increased 16 percent. In total, 590 preowned business jets were available for sale in May, compared with 580 in April and 1,198 in May 2021.

Jefferies noted that while the decline is broad-based across the market, midsize jets have led the decline in the availability for sale, down 57 percent. Large-cabin jet inventories were down 50 percent from a year ago, while 46 percent fewer light jets were available.

Just four Dassault business jets were for sale last month—a 75 percent drop from a year ago, equating to 0.8 percent of the younger active fleet.

Bombardier business jet availability has plummeted 60 percent, to 36 units, with the number of preowned Challengers available for sale seeing a 68 percent drop. Embraer followed with a 57 percent decline in available preowned business jets, with 21 for sale. Gulfstream jets followed with a 49 percent year-over-year contraction to 31, and there were 70 Cessna Citations for sale, a 45 percent decline.

As for pricing increases, Bombardier jets jumped 29 percent, to $13.9 million, led by a 52 percent increase for Globals. Citation prices were up 21 percent and Gulfstream aircraft pricing increased 17 percent. Dassault pricing, however, is down a percentage point and the Falcon 7X declined 7 percent.