A short briefing every morning: what’s new in the world of private jets, plus an aircraft, a priced route, a fact and a story from the archive.
AMSTAT’s Q3 data shows heavy business jets as the strongest part of the used-aircraft market, with only 5.1% of the fleet for sale versus a 10-year average of 7%. Super-midsize inventory is moving the other way, up 11.4% year to date.
Read the brief →Airbus Corporate Jets says large business-jet activity in the Middle East could rise 83% by 2030, based on a survey of 35 financiers and brokers. It also says the region already represents about one-third of demand for VIP airliner-style jets.
Read the brief →AircraftPost says the preowned business-jet market tightened through the first three quarters of 2026, with fewer transactions and fewer aircraft coming to market. Asking-price reductions fell 36.8% overall, a sign that sellers are making fewer concessions.
Read the brief →NBAA says its 2026 convention will feature advanced-air-mobility displays including Beyond Aero’s six-passenger hydrogen-electric ONE concept, DTA’s flying JP1 hybrid eVTOL and REGENT’s electric Seaglider. The show runs October 20–22 at the Las Vegas Convention Center and Henderson Executive Airport.
Read the brief →The Avanti EVO is the latest version of Piaggio's three-lifting-surface pusher turboprop, the fastest in the world at 402 knots with a stand-up cabin as wide as a midsize jet's. The EVO added winglets, redesigned nacelles and quieter scimitar propellers, and Piaggio has resumed marketing the type after its 2025 acquisition by Turkey's Baykar. Range 1,720 nm, 7 seats, about $8,000,000 new and roughly $1,200 an hour in fuel and maintenance.
Full profile →Honda spent nearly 30 years on the HondaJet before certification in 2015, and mounted the engines above the wing to free up cabin and baggage space. (Honda Aircraft Company)
More numbers →632 nautical miles, about 1h 48m in a light jet, roughly $13,227–$18,940 one-way for four — about $4,021 a seat.
Price this route →Business jet flying fell by three quarters in April 2020, yet within months it recovered faster than airlines as travellers with means sought to avoid crowded terminals. Charter and fractional companies reported record numbers of first-time customers, and the used-jet inventory fell to historic lows. The surge would carry into the busiest year on record in 2021. Airports like Teterboro and Van Nuys reported record months by late 2020, and jet-card companies that had never sold out did so for the first time.
The full timeline →Nike's Gulfstream is famous with plane-spotters for its shoebox-orange livery: an Air Max profile on the tail, track spikes painted under the wings and the original Air Pegasus on the winglets. The 2019 G650ER replaced a G550 that wore the same registration, a nod to the company's 1972 founding year.
The story →TRUE — True. The *Big Bunny*, a black-painted McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 delivered to Playboy in 1969 for about $5.5 million, had an oval bed with silk sheets and a fur bedspread in Hefner's rear suite, a living room, a galley, a cinema and video system, and a dance floor with lighting that the company called a discotheque. It was crewed by 'Jet Bunnies' trained by Continental Airlines. Playboy sold it in 1975.
The evidence →