Sarah Rose (they/them) is a news writer and reporter for AIN. 
Prior to AIN, Sarah worked as a journalist for Georgia Public Broadcasting, Georgia&#039;s statewide NPR and PBS affiliate. They have also worked for several national nonprofits and as a legislative assistant in U.S. Congress. As an openly nonbinary reporter, they are a proud member of the Trans Journalists Association. 
Sarah is a 2012 graduate of Kennesaw State University.

News Writer

Sarah Rose

The theme at the Corporate Jet Investor Miami conference from the opening yesterday into this morning remained clear: a cautious consensus that the future looked bright for business aviation in 2025 following an uncertain U.S. political landscape.&nbsp;“I think we’re feeling a very robust market with very high confidence,” said Avpro co-founder Chris Ellis. “Virtually certain tax benefits are coming next year, so I think you’re going to see a very strong market in 2025.”
This optimism comes after a period of uncertainty for the industry.&nbsp;“Election year is something that slows down aircraft sales in general. Every aircraft salesperson has a different experience,” said Par Avion founder and president Janine Iannarelli. “I always planned for a slow year. I plan for it.”
“There are always headwinds: ‘The geopolitical price of this, the cost of this, the price of this segment.’ You’d think the price of any of those alone would make a difference, and we haven’t seen those make any difference,” said Jay Mesinger of Mesinger Jet Sales. “You can count on headwinds; we always have them for 10 different reasons for every transaction.”&nbsp;
Iannarelli said that now that the U.S. election is over, she believes more clients will be willing to move ahead with business in the business aviation market.&nbsp;“I think you’ll see frustration released. I think we’ll be busy. I have calls with clients scheduled and I think they’ll pull the trigger,” she said.
Ellis said that the issue that concerned him was continued delays for parts and how it could affect the flow of the industry as a whole.&nbsp;“These are real issues for owners,” he said.&nbsp;
Wheels Up CEO George Mattson also projected a position of confidence going into 2025 following a difficult period for the Delta Air Lines-backed company.
“The first thing was really to come and assess our situation from the inside out. The business had gone through a challenging period. When I started looking really deeply into the operation, perception was lacking reality,” he said. “No doubt we had some operational challenges. Our operation was doing better than people realized, so we made a decision in my first quarterly earnings call to publicly disclose our operational statistics. We had to stabilize the operation. The third thing was we had to build a great team.”
At NBAA-BACE last month in Las Vegas, the company announced that it was modernizing its jet fleet through a plan to consolidate the number of different aircraft types it operates to primarily two models: the Embraer Phenom 300 and Bombardier Challenger 300/350. The private flight provider also announced that it has lined up a $332 million credit facility from Bank of America, backed by the operator's main shareholder, Delta Air Lines.
“Early on, I realized that we were a little behind of where we wanted to be on the age and desirability of our fleet,” Mattson said to the audience in Miami. “We really wanted to shift our focus to something that aligns with the premium offerings of Delta and we realized we needed a different fleet. What we look for is, what are the most desirable and respected aircraft in the different classes?”
Global Jet Capital CEO Vivek Kaushal was asked about the relationship between interest rates and industry demand.&nbsp;“In my opinion, it’s not so much the absolute level of rates—it’s the direction of travel,” he said. “Whenever there’s uncertainty, people take a step back, and often for good reason. People were justified in taking a step back and it just so happened that it coincided with this spike in value.”
“The first question we receive from any customer is, ‘What’s the rate today?’” said PNC head of aviation finance Ramy Sidhom. “What we also know is that wealth has grown quite a bit.”
“We saw a couple of examples, whereas rates were going up, we saw an increase in volume. There was an impression from clients that they wanted to beat the rates going up by locking in, so there was a pressure to lock in a fixed rate,” said 1st Source Bank president of aviation finance Chris Lee. “Let’s go back to 2020—remember what you were getting on your cash. So we saw a lot of clients choosing to go with cash because they weren’t getting a turnaround. Fast forward to two years, people were getting four and a half to five on cash.”
“The interest rate curve should have an upward slope,” added Kaushal.

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