COVID pushed people to buy private planes instead of chartering them. About 25-35% of those buyers kept their planes after the pandemic ended. Older jets that cost $2-3 million jumped to around $4 million, and many of those buyers held onto them permanently.
They started seeing, I need that airplane, whether it's health reasons, flexibility, they're not going to those airports, timing, security, whatever the reason is. And some actually came and bought airplanes. There's absolutely no question that there's a sticking factor. And a lot of those people who came in are staying. Maybe it's 25%, 35%. It's not 80%, but it's still, you know, they say a rising tide raises all boats. So that whole base of people who used to rent or buy airplanes has definitely increased. So the number of airplanes that are available for charter or rent have gone down.
Have you noticed that the age, the average age has gone down as well.
Yeah, during COVID what happened, it was a lot of people who owned these airplanes that were 20, 25 years old, they were definitely the last owners of those airplanes. They were the $2, $3 million airplanes, they were 25 years old, and all of a sudden, all these people wanted to buy a plane. So those $2 million airplanes became $4 million airplanes, and unfortunately, those people probably became the last people to own that airplane. It's one of those things where the music stops, you know, there's no chairs. So now the market's starting to slow down.
