New Private Jet Sales Rise in 2024

GAMA, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, has reported total sales of 764 new private business jets in 2024. A 4.6% increase from the 730 new jets sold globally in 2023. Sales of piston aircraft were also up, by 4.2% to 1,772 units, but sales of turboprops dropped 1.9% to 626 units. New helicopter sales rose by 4 units to 956 in 2024. The total of all new aircraft deliveries were valued at $31.2 billion, an increase of 13.3%.

“As we report on the strength of the general aviation manufacturing industry over the past year, it is notable that for the first time in a decade our companies again exceeded $30 billion in annual billings and for the second year in a row, we shipped more than 4,000 units." said Pete Bunce, GAMA President and CEO adding "This strong performance provides great momentum into 2025, but it is essential that policymakers and regulators on both sides of the Atlantic recognize that for continued growth, they must work with industry on policy issues such as taxes, trade, regulations and supply chain."

The table below shows unit sales of new private jets by manufacturer in 2024, with 2023 unit sales for comparison.

The most significant model sales included the following:

Bombardier
 73 aircraft of the Challenger 3500/650 - super-mid size, with transcontinental U.S. range
 73 aircraft of the Global 5500/6000/6500/7500 series - large ultra-long range business jets

Cirrus
 101 aircraft of the SF50 - very light (or personal) jet, with a 1,300 nm range

Embraer
 65 aircraft of the Phenom 300/300E - light jet, with a range of about 2,000nm

Gulfstream
 118 aircraft of the G500/600/650/650ER/6700 - large to ultra long-range jets

Honda
 11 aircraft of the HondaJet - light jet, with a range over 1,400nm

Pilatus
 51 aircraft of the PC-24 - light jet, with a range over 1,800nm

Cessna
 24 aircraft of the Citation CJ3+ - light jet
 26 aircraft of the Citation CJ4 Gen2 - light jet
 40 aircraft of the Citation Latitude - mid-size jet
 

Textron Aviation (Cessna) again led the market in terms of number of new private jets sold in 2024, and has been the largest seller by units for many years. The company delivered almost 20% of all new private jets in 2024. Although in 2024, it saw falls in unit sales across most of its models. It is also one of the leading manufacturers of pistons and turboprops. The Cessna Citation Latitude was again the top seller in the mid-size jet category.

The Embraer Phenom 300/300E continues to be the most popular light jet, as it has been for many years. It is used by large fractional aircraft providers, such as Flexjet, NetJets and Airshare, and by many charter operators, for instance in 2024 Wheels Up announced it is moving to a fleet of Phenom 300s.

The Cirrus Vision SF50 has proven to be an incredibly popular single engine very light or personal jet. The $3.4m aircraft offers both an emergency autoland system - literally press a button and the plane can land itself - and a whole-aircraft ballistic parachute. It has been the best selling jet for several years, with many buyers being indvidual pilot owners.

Bombardier delivered the last Learjet in 2022. It is now focused on the larger and more profitable Challengers and Globals. Bombardier and Gulfstream are the two biggest manufacturers of these large and ultra-long range business jets. 

The best selling turboprop was again the Pilatus PC-12, which sold 96 new units in 2024 and can be found in both fractional and charter fleets around the world. Other popular turboprops are the TBM 960 (56 units), Piper M700 (46 units) and Grand Caravan EX (60 units).

The best selling helicopters were the Robinson R44 Raven II with 121 units sold, the Robinson R66 with 119 units sold and the Airbus H125 / H125M which sold 120 units.

Note, GAMA gathers aircraft shipment data from 39 manufacturers. The report also contains detailed aircraft registry data from 47 countries, representing the vast majority of the market for general aviation aircraft deliveries. In terms of delivery locations,  71% of all the aircraft deliveries went to North America in 2024.