Podcast: The 2025 Outlook For Business Aviation

The new year will see President-elect Trump return to the White House, a fresh FAA administrator and numerous business jets entering service. Listen in as BCA editors discuss what this all could mean for business aviation and share their predictions for 2025.

Jeremy Kariuki:

Hello and welcome to the BCA Podcast by Aviation Week Network. I'm your host, associate Editor for Business Aviation, Jeremy Kariuki. It is now 2025. This is our first episode of the year, and I'm joined by my colleagues Molly McMillin and Bill Carey. Welcome back everyone.

Bill Carey:

Onward and upward, Jeremy, good to see you.

Jeremy Kariuki:

Onward and upward.

Molly McMillin:

Thanks, Jeremy. Good to see you, Bill and Jeremy.

Jeremy Kariuki:

We're gathered here today to discuss our outlook for this present year. There's a lot happening. We've survived another election year and with that there's going to be a lot of changes we believe. To start us off, Bill, we might be seeing some changes when it comes to the FAA in particular. Can you talk about that?

Bill Carey:

Yeah, be careful what you may wish for on that one, Jeremy, I'm looking at this year primarily from the regulatory and policy perspective, and the first thing I'm anticipating will be the naming of a new nominee to replace FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker. Whitaker is stepping down on January 20th and he's leaving his tenure with the FAA with about two and a half years left in the five-year term. It's unclear who is going to lead the FAA this year.

There's at least one name that's been mentioned, and this is unsubstantiated reporting that I've seen that JSX CEO Alex Wilcox, is a leading contender perhaps for the job. That would certainly be a business aviation friendly appointment. As you know, JSX operates a fleet of Embraer ERJs converted for 30 seats and flown under part 135. Secondarily, there's now uncertainty over the progress toward ramping up production of sustainable aviation fuel given Trump's climate change skepticism, dare I say denialism and his vow to roll back the Biden Administration's Inflation Reduction Act, which allocated $360 billion in tax incentives, grants and subsidies for clean energy projects.

Business aviation and aviation in general on the production side and on the consumption side has been making progress toward adopting sustainable aviation fuel and working toward the Biden administration's SAF Grand Challenge. Let's see if that momentum is continued under the Trump administration. At the same time, this is the last point I'll make on this, Trump's soft peddling on the environment and apparent disdain for taxes and regulations could actually benefit the commerce or the business of business aviation, which has been under fire for some time now from environmentalists.

I would doubt that the extra IRS Internal Revenue Service scrutiny of high wealth individuals and corporate business aircraft operators will continue under the Trump administration. That was something that came to be under the Biden administration and we'll see if that continues. The next thing that may be detrimental to business aviation, and I understand Jeremy, you had some thoughts on this, would be Trump's threat of imposing tariffs including on friendly country.

Jeremy Kariuki:

Yeah, that is, concerning might be the word, but it's relevant because we typically don't want to anger our friends in any sort of situation. But in recent news, Trump has at least suggested the idea of inflicting tariffs on countries such as Mexico, Canada, even going as far as to suggest that we might take Greenland for defense purposes. No one knows for sure if any of these things are actual policy, if this is just him speaking his mind, but the market will react nonetheless.

If these tariffs do go into play, that could actually have quite an impact on supply chain in terms of manufacturing of a lot of new jets. And we are expecting to see quite a bit of new aircraft to enter service potentially this year. I know there's a couple on this list that we were expecting to see in 2024, but due to supply chain issues and the not so recent kerfuffle, we'll say with Boeing's 737 Max and the increased certification standards from the FAA that pushed back the certification of a couple of aircraft, particularly Gulfstream's G-800, which was supposed to come out last year, but will likely come out now in 2025.

And that also had delayed the certification of the G-700 and the other aircraft we're expecting to see this year are the Textron's Citation Ascend and Beechcraft Denali, which Bill, I'm sure you've read up on a lot given that it'll include Garmin's Autoland, which is actually very exciting.

Bill Carey:

And actually Molly is more of an expert on Denali than I am, but it does introduce a new GE turboprop engine and I think Denali is supposed to enter service this year. Am I correct, Molly?

Molly McMillin:

Yes, this year, long awaited.

Bill Carey:

Yeah, I mean when was it originally due to enter service and what has been the delay essentially?

Molly McMillin:

I don't have it off the top of my head when it was supposed to enter service, but the biggest holdup was on the catalyst engine so that it wasn't so much the airframe and that as it was waiting on the certification of the catalyst engine. All of that is supposed to happen in 2025.

Jeremy Kariuki:

And Molly, you also had some predictions on Embraer and Dassault deliveries. Could you talk to us about that?

Molly McMillin:

Not so much predictions per se, but both Dassault and Embraer have come out with their 2024 deliveries when in each case the numbers were higher than they were in 2023. Our own data people at Aviation Week are actually as we speak, in the midst of assembling delivery numbers for 2024 for all of business aviation. Those will come out in a couple of weeks so I'll say stay tuned for the results on that. But just to follow up, Bill and Jeremy on what you were talking about with what one person told me he calls the Trump surprise, that it could have a positive effect where it might improve the atmosphere, if you will, for business aviation.

It could also signal return to a 100% bonus depreciation, which has been phased out, which always gives business aviation orders a boost when that happens. And I think people are hoping, expecting that it creates a more positive climate for the use of business aviation given that Trump is a user and is more in favor of those sorts of things. Also, in 2024, Congress passed the FAA reauthorization bill that passed into law, which is a positive for business aviation. And Europe is releasing the European Consortium's clean industrial plan, which the hope is that that will recognize the important role that business aviation plays in Europe as far as connectivity and safety and that, those are a couple of positives that happened.

Bill Carey:

And I might add that Trump's good friend, Elon Musk is a business jet owner and enthusiast.

Jeremy Kariuki:

Yes. And also to head the Department of Government Efficiency, I also noticed DOGE which we know very little about, but I'm sure we'll be hearing much about this year. But Molly, I'm glad you had mentioned the 2024 FAA Reauthorization bill because I was reading it not too long ago and I'd seen a section, I believe it was part 808 in workforce development where the FAA is authorizing the support of HBCUs and minority serving institutions to help increase diversity in the aviation workforce.

Now that is opposed to Trump's communicated stance on DE&I initiatives so far as even companies outside of aviation have already rolled back their policy and programs on DE&I. And also the threat of losing government contracts with companies that utilize DEI initiatives is also a possibility. I'm not sure if this will affect what we are seeing in the FAA Reauthorization bill, but only time will tell. We'll see what the business aviation industry in particular, what their stance will end up being, if any at all.

Molly McMillin:

Well, you bring up workforce and that's been a challenge. Certainly having a quality well-trained workforce is still a lot of competition for the workforce as supply chain challenges will continue. Those two areas will still be a challenge in 2025. I had an interesting conversation with someone today, actually today that is just, she just got her commercial pilot's license and is working on her CFI and her goal is to target women, to encourage more women to fly and to get into aviation.

And that's been an industry goal to expand all young people getting into aviation, but her particular focus is going to be on other women. And I mentioned to her that when I go to Bombardier's Safety Standdown, I'm in Wichita and here in Wichita, the hotel always converts women's bathroom into another men's bathroom because of the mix of men to women. And so she's like, we need to change that. Hopefully as you go to those types of events in the future that maybe that will be a thing of the past, but we'll see. Some other predictions with the Weekly of Business Aviation, I've been asking leaders to give their predictions for 2025.

And I've gotten a mix of really interesting things or ideas. One, Kenn Ricci with Flexjet just mentioned that when he looks at the market for 2025 that he's more cautious. He said it's not the time to, as he calls it, outspend your coverage. Just that with a change in leadership that not all the world's problems are suddenly going to melt away, but as a business owner, and it's part of just being a business person to be thoughtful and cautious as you go. One person noted that the light in mid-size jet market that's had the fastest recovery will be the most promising area in production for 2025.

Also, another thing is OEMs have felt a surge in demand over the last few years post-Covid. And in 2024 they mentioned a return to normalcy, but I think what happened is it just continued to be bolstered and supply chain issues were still at pressure, but as it stabilized, and I think the thought is 2025 might be a pivotal year in that this year the industry may actually get to that balance of demand and supply chain and productivity, that sort of balance, that it's kind of thought maybe it was going to happen in 2024, so we'll see. There's a lot of questions, but a lot of positivity as well.

Jeremy Kariuki:

Absolutely. And also I'd like to mention Honeywell's outlook that they had released in October of last year. They had predicted a continued increase in jet production, up to about 16% higher than we'd seen in 2019 before the pandemic. And in the survey that they conducted of aircraft operators, 30% of the respondents expected to increase their flight activity this year. Now that was before the election, before the Reauthorization Act, before power had lift as far. So a lot has changed since the survey was conducted, but generally a lot of operators are expecting to increase their activity this year.

All that being said, I wanted to switch gears to some stuff that's happening in the news right now. There's currently a lot of bush fires that are devastating California at the moment due to the Santa Ana winds that are getting gust upwards of 100 miles per hour. And a lot of scientists are saying that this is a result of climate change, something that is going to come up I'm sure throughout the rest of the year. But I think as far as my predictions that we're going to see an increased amount of weather events, extreme weather events, that could affect business aviation infrastructure.

We could look back just as far as the middle of last year when we saw Hurricanes Helene and Hurricane Milton, and even the fires in Maui in Hawaii that affected a lot. Now that being said, especially with the Maui fires, the business aviation industry actually did a lot to help the people recuperate and even survive these tragedies going so far as FBOs opening up their hangars to shelter people during the fires and to transfer supplies, much needed supplies like water and food and clothing to these areas so that way people could survive. I think that unfortunately and unfortunately that this will be a reoccurring issue that we will be seeing throughout 2025.

Bill Carey:

Yeah, and I think that points to one of the real positive things about business aviation is that its ability to respond to these types of natural events and disasters and the dependency by municipal authorities, helicopters, fixed wing aircraft really to, we're seeing that now in the current Paradise Fire and some of the other wildfires in the Los Angeles area. Business aviation/general aviation has really come to the fore. That's I feel one of the greatest societal benefits of the industry.

Molly McMillin:

Another thing to watch I think in 2025 is what private equity may do this year. Yingling Aviation just announced their fourth purchase since they became part of AI, and was it just a year ago? That space is interesting. There may be some FBO consolidations. There also could be some new product announcements and product developments in 2025 and some new technology announcements including windowless business jets.

Bill Carey:

Jeremy, if I may, I'd like to just mention one other development I expect to see in 2025, and that's the introduction of a third FAA improved 100 octane unloaded Avgas that potentially could work across the fleet of 150,000 to 200,000 odd piston engine aircraft in the United States. That would be the fleet authorization of UL100E, which is a high octane unleaded Abvgas under development by the chemical company LyondellBasell and fuel developer VP Racing.

If indeed that does, it's being tested mainly at the FAA Tech Center under the Piston Aviation Fuels Initiative. If that does win, an FAA nod that would join SwiftFuels 100Rs in Romeo and GAMI G100UL, which are currently FAA approved unleaded aviation fuels. And if you recall, the FAA and industry under the Eliminate Aviation Gasoline LED Emissions initiative have vowed to phase out leaded aviation fuel by 2030 or soon.

Jeremy Kariuki:

So I think that's just about all the time we have for this episode. Before we go, I'd love to pose a question to the both of you, simply, what are you looking forward to the most in 2025, whether it's in business aviation or in aviation in general? What are you looking forward to?

Bill Carey:

On my part, being a Washington guy, the change in administrations is always exciting. Being a news person, I await with bated breath what new things, new trends to report about during 2025 as they affect the aviation industry.

Jeremy Kariuki:

Molly?

Molly McMillin:

For me, I love watching the OEMs and what they have in the works and their announcements of new products and how that industry changes with developments. If there's going to be an announcement of windowless business aviation or business jets this year, I can't wait to see it.

Bill Carey:

You're not going to see it from inside the airplane, unfortunately.

Molly McMillin:

Well, but AI will show you. It's not that it'll just be blank. It will be AI coming in with pictures and what you're seeing. Anyway, I like just following the trends and demand and the market, and it's just all interesting. It's an interesting industry and there's so many different facets of it.

Jeremy Kariuki:

Absolutely. For myself, I am very excited to see what happens to the EV toll industry. As these companies go up and down in terms of financial stability and technological advancement, I'm sure it's going to look entirely different 12 months from now, but we'll just have to wait and see just like everything else. But Molly, Bill, thank you again for joining me on the podcast again. It's always a pleasure.

Bill Carey:

Thank you, Jeremy.

Molly McMillin:

Thanks Jeremy.

Jeremy Kariuki:

Thank you for listening to the BCA Podcast by Aviation Week Network. This week's episode is produced by Jeremy Kariuki and Cory Hitt. If you enjoyed the show, don't forget to like or follow us on your podcast app of choice. And if you'd like to support us, please leave a rating wherever you listen. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time.