Once again, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is home to an unabashed champion of business aviation. The 47th (and 45th) US President may be the world’s most celebrated private jet user, regularly travelling on his self-liveried Boeing 757, known as Trump Force One, before and between his time in the White House.
When Donald Trump replaced Joe Biden – who used his final State of the Union address in March 2024 to call for an end to tax breaks for billionaires and users of corporate aircraft – many in the industry breathed a sigh of relief. A Kamala Harris administration is likely to have followed up on those threats.
With Congress firmly in Republican hands, the threat of business aviation bashing may have passed for now. However, nine months into his second presidency, Donald Trump’s stop-start tariff policies and an immigration crackdown have led to economic uncertainty, a weakening dollar, and a faltering stock market.
So far at least though, it does not seem to have affected corporate America’s appetite for business aviation. Traffic figures from data specialist WingX show the US performing strongly in a global market that has seen higher business departures year-on-year in all but six weeks of 2025, with the gap widening each quarter.
Surprising resilience
“We are seeing pleasantly surprising resilience,” says Adam Cowburn, managing director with aviation consultancy Alton. “We were expecting largely a continuation story, coming down from post-Covid highs as new users in the industry peter off, but we are seeing mid-single digit growth in traffic instead.”
While “uncertainty has been the killer of investment” in the past, the USA is experiencing “high levels of economic activity and wealth creation”, with “equity markets still ticking up” he says. Europe, meanwhile, is growing at a slower rate.
“If you look at aircraft movements and orderbooks, any stock market wobbles have not fed through yet, and it would take significant traction to affect the industry at this stage. We know there will always be some cyclicality, but what might change current trends is not quite clear at this point,” he adds.
Chad Anderson, chief executive of aircraft brokerage Jetcraft, believes the reimplementation of bonus depreciation, introduced by the Trump administration in January, is helping boost demand for both new and used business aircraft in the USA.
Bonus depreciation allows owners of assets such as business aircraft to depreciate capital equipment acquired and placed into service after 19 January 2025 more quickly for tax purposes, rather than write off the investment over many years.
Meanwhile, the surge in business aviation use that occurred during the post-Covid-19 disruption to airline travel has not reversed sharply, as many in the industry feared, maintains Eric Zipkin, founder of Connecticut-based Pilatus PC-12 operator Tradewind.
“The pandemic drove many people into flying private, and it’s a very sticky product,” he says. “People that flew with us after the pandemic will never go back to an airline service that is not what it was. They seem to have a new-found appreciation of the quality of their time.”
Sales of new aircraft got off to a good start in 2025, with half-year figures from the General Aviation Manufacturers Association showing shipments of business jets up just under 10% to 354 units, compared with 2024. The value of all general aviation fixed wing aircraft deliveries grew 9.9% to $12.3 billion.
While these are global figures, US business jet manufacturers – GAMA counts those with Federal Aviation Administration production certification – performed well, shifting 252 aircraft compared with 223 in the first six months of last year. European airframers delivered 31, the same as in 2024.
Business aviation’s big players have also been attracting big money. In July, fractional operator Flexjet closed what it claimed was the largest equity investment in the history of private aviation, worth $800 million. In March, a consortium of investors led by RRJ Capital committed $600 million to European charter giant Vista.
Marquee deals
The year has also seen a succession of marquee deals, including Flexjet’s with Embraer in February for 182 Praetor and Phenom 300E aircraft. The fractional operator said the agreement – a record for both companies and worth up to $7 billion at current list prices – would nearly double the size of its fleet in five years.
Meanwhile, in July, Bombardier announced a firm order for 50 Challenger and Global jets from an anonymous first-time customer, with deliveries set to begin in 2027. The Canadian airframer values the deal at $1.7 billion and says this could rise to around $4 billion if options for a further 70 aircraft are exercised.
In fact, the biggest challenge for the industry is not demand for business aviation, but supply, with Trump’s tariffs adding to post-Covid concerns about a snagged supply chain and capacity shortages in the maintenance, repair and overhaul sector, according to Anderson.
There was good news for European aircraft manufacturers in July when Trump and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen agreed a deal that will place zero-for-zero tariffs on aircraft and parts.
A few weeks earlier, Dassault chief executive Eric Trappier had blamed uncertainty over potential US tariffs, as well as continuing “difficulties in the supply chain” for “weak orders” for Falcon jets in the first half of 2025: the airframer booked commitments for just eight aircraft during the period.
Trappier warned that tariffs as little as 10% on aerospace imports would mean the French manufacturer – which has a completion facility in Little Rock, Arkansas – could “no longer operate in the US market”.
Switzerland – which is not a member of the European Union and so not covered by the deal – faces a new tariff rate of 39% on most of its US imports, including those of privately owned airframer Pilatus, which in August paused transatlantic shipments of its PC-12 single-engine turboprop and PC-24 light jet as a result.
The USA accounts for around 40% of PC-24 and PC-12 production, and in the 12 months to July 2024 the latter was the most frequently flown aircraft in that market in terms of departures, according to WingX.
While there is hope in the industry that Switzerland can make a bargain with Trump that will reduce or eliminate tariffs on its aircraft exports, the decision is believed to have come as a shock to Berne, where politicians had been hoping for a similar arrangement to the one secured by the UK or the EU.
One problem for neutral Switzerland has been that, despite it punching above its weight in the global economy and being home to countless international bodies, the nation of nine million people does not have a strong federal presidency able to deal directly with Trump, who thrives on one-to-one diplomacy and deal-making.
Tradewind is one of the US Pilatus operators affected. Flying largely from White Plains and Teterboro, it serves mostly leisure destinations in the Northeast, eastern Caribbean, and Florida. The business has a 34-strong, all-PC-12 fleet and has been adding “four or five aircraft per year for the past several years”, says Zipkin.
He says the tariff decision has been “extremely disappointing”. With 12 PC-12s still scheduled for delivery from a 2021 commitment for 20 units, “the uncertainty makes it extremely difficult for us to plan”, he adds.
Long-term view
The halt to deliveries has also meant Tradewind is still waiting for its first PC-12 Pro, the latest version launched in March. While Zipkin says Pilatus has “always taken a long-term view” and he is confident there will be an end to the impasse, “getting there will be a challenge for everyone”.
One solution for Pilatus might be to begin assembling aircraft in the USA – Trump has always been clear that one of the aims of his tariff policy has been to encourage importers to establish manufacturing plants stateside to create jobs and reverse trade imbalances.
Pilatus currently has a completion facility in Broomfield, near Denver, and last year detailed plans for a sales, design, and service centre in Bradenton, Florida that is due to open in 2026. The manufacturer said at the time that “future growth plans” include a final assembly line for aircraft destined for North and South America.
Although not affected by tariffs for now, France’s Daher has taken a similar decision, and aims to start assembling TBM turboprop aircraft for the US market at a factory next to its aerostructures plant in Stuart, Florida. Daher’s Kodiak aircraft are already produced in the USA, in Sandpoint, Idaho.
Brazil, the other aircraft exporting country potentially affected by tariffs, escaped with a relatively light 10% charge on aerospace products. Domestic manufacturer Embraer is also cushioned by the fact that much of the production of its Phenom and Praetor business jet families takes place in Melbourne, Florida.
Trade policy
There is still concern over the detail of some of Trump’s trade policy. “The dust has not yet settled but the hope is that we end up with zero tariffs on aerospace products” says Alton’s Cowburn.
Meanwhile, Jetcraft’s Anderson says it is still unclear how tariff policy will be implemented on imports of used aircraft that are being moved onto the US register.
“There are a whole lot of things we’re having to assess and at the moment there are more questions than answers,” he says.
In a July report, consultancy Rolland Vincent Associates urged a tariff-free marketplace in business jets, saying that the long-running stable, zero-tariff environment had “fuelled decades of investment, innovation, and high-paying jobs in America” while consistently generating a “significant trade surplus”.
Whether that message reaches the right ears in the Oval Office remains to be seen.
