Every few weeks a buyer calls us with the same opening line: “I hear the market is softening, so I should be able to get a deal.” Sometimes the next call is a seller convinced the opposite. Both are working from headlines, and the headlines this summer have been contradictory on purpose. Here is what the numbers actually say heading into the fourth quarter of 2026, and what we tell clients on each side of a transaction.
Inventory is the tightest it has been in more than two years
Start with supply, because supply explains most of what follows. AMSTAT’s second-quarter analysis puts pre-owned turbine inventory at 5.8% of the active fleet at the end of June, the lowest reading since February 2024. For jets specifically, 6.5% of the fleet is listed for sale against a ten-year average of 8.1%. Heavy jets are tighter still at 5.2%.
JETNET’s August barometer tells the same story from a different desk: for-sale inventory averaging roughly 1,766 aircraft, or 6.6% of the fleet, down from 7.3% a year earlier, with an inventory-to-transaction ratio of 0.63 to 1. In plain terms, there are fewer aircraft for sale than there are transactions in a year. That is not a buyer’s market by any definition we use.
The reason is upstream. New-aircraft backlogs across the OEMs sit at $61.6 billion, with Gulfstream and Bombardier holding about three-quarters of it and both running book-to-bill ratios around 1.5. Bombardier’s backlog grew 35.4% year over year. Anyone who wants a new large-cabin jet is waiting years, and a meaningful share of those buyers walk into the pre-owned market instead. As IADA executive director Louis Seno put it in the association’s mid-year report, those buyers are “competing hard for a shrinking pool of clean, late-model jets.”
The transaction count depends on who is counting
This is where the headlines diverge, and it is worth understanding why before you act on either one.
AMSTAT reports pre-owned jet transactions up 7% in the first half of 2026 versus the first half of 2025, with the second quarter alone up 11.2% year over year. IADA’s dealer members closed 746 deals in the first half, a 21% increase. Read those two and you conclude the market is accelerating.
JETNET’s July barometer, meanwhile, counted 1,115 pre-owned transactions in the first half, down 10.8% from a year earlier, with medium jets off 27.1% and only large jets growing, at 3.8%. Its trailing-twelve-month growth rate had decelerated from more than 15% in December to low single digits by summer.
These sources define a transaction differently and track different populations, so the absolute numbers were never going to match. What matters is that they agree on the shape: large-cabin activity is up, the middle of the market is soft, and everything is happening against a shrinking inventory base. When a buyer quotes us the JETNET decline as leverage on a late-model Gulfstream, we point out that the large-jet line in that same report is the one that went up.
Prices: the top is firm, the middle is discounting
AMSTAT has median transaction values up 5% year over year and up 2% since January, while average asking prices are down in several segments. Those two facts are not in conflict. Younger, higher-value aircraft are selling quickly and close to ask; older aircraft are sitting and eventually taking discounts, which drags the asking-price averages down.
JETNET’s large-jet pricing is the most useful single data point for sellers to internalize. The June trailing-twelve-month average sale price for a large jet was $12.63 million, down 15.7% year over year. By the August edition that figure had firmed to $14.20 million, which JETNET describes as roughly where large-cabin values sat in 2019. Large-cabin values overshot in 2022 and 2023, corrected, and now appear to have found a floor. Small jets averaged $3.52 million and medium jets $5.16 million in the same August report.
IADA’s dealer survey expects prices to rise over the next six months, particularly for larger aircraft. We think that is directionally right for anything under ten years old with complete records. We would not extend it to the 2001 Hawker.
Days on market: age is the whole story
The average aircraft in JETNET’s data sat for 96 to 98 days before selling this summer. That average hides a spread that should drive every listing strategy. Aircraft zero to five years old averaged 54 days on market. Aircraft 21 to 25 years old averaged 115 days, and aircraft 26 years and older averaged 128.
Now layer in the composition of what is for sale. Roughly three-quarters of the for-sale inventory is 16 or more years old, up from 57% a decade ago. Only about 6% of listings are aircraft five years old or younger. So the inventory shortage everyone is talking about is really a shortage of late-model aircraft; the older end of the market is not short at all, and buyers there have time and choices.
What this means if you are buying
- Decide your vintage before you decide your model. A 2018 airframe and a 2004 airframe of the same type are in two different markets right now. One requires speed and a clean offer; the other rewards patience and a hard pre-buy.
- Late-model, large-cabin: be ready to move. Fifty-four days on market is the average, and the best examples go faster. Have financing, an escrow agent, and an inspection facility lined up before the aircraft you want appears. We covered why a rushed pre-buy is a bad trade in our recent post on pre-buy inspections; being prepared is how you avoid having to rush.
- Mid-cabin and older: negotiate on facts, not headlines. Days on market, engine program status, upcoming inspections, and comparable closed sales are what move a seller. “The market is down” is not an argument; “this airframe has been listed 140 days and needs a 96-month inspection” is.
- Understand the tax clock. The 2025 tax law made 100% first-year bonus depreciation permanent for aircraft acquired after January 19, 2025, and it applies to used aircraft, provided the aircraft clears the qualified-business-use test (more than 50%) in the year it is placed in service. That is part of why demand at the top is firm. Talk to your tax advisor early, because “placed in service” by December 31 is a real deadline for a real deduction, and it compresses Q4 closings every year.
What this means if you are selling
- If your aircraft is under ten years old, this is your window. Inventory in your segment is scarce, buyers are pre-qualified, and dealer sentiment expects prices to hold or rise. Price it to the closed comps, not above them, and you will likely have multiple parties.
- If it is older, records and readiness are your price. Complete logbooks, engines on a program, no open squawks, and a recent major inspection are what separate a 60-day sale from a 130-day one. Deferred maintenance gets deducted from your price twice: once in the offer and again in the pre-buy negotiation.
- Do not list at last year’s asking prices. Asking averages are falling in several segments in part because owners anchored to 2023 and the aircraft sat. An aircraft that has been on the market six months is a discounted aircraft in every buyer’s mind, regardless of what the listing says.
How we work a deal in this market
Our sales desk is run by people who fly these aircraft, and that shapes what we do in a market like this one. On the buy side, we look past the listings and go directly to operators and owners whose aircraft fit the mission, because in a 6.5% inventory environment the best airframes often trade before they are ever advertised. On the sell side, we prepare the aircraft and its records before the listing goes live, so the first serious buyer does not become the first serious problem.
And because we run a charter and logistics operation alongside the sales desk, we can keep a client flying while a deal closes: a bridging charter during the pre-buy, a positioning flight to the inspection facility, or a crew and parts move if the inspection turns something up. A transaction is a mission with a wheels-up time, and we treat it that way.
Thinking about buying or selling this quarter?
The pre-owned market in the fall of 2026 rewards preparation over timing. If you are weighing an acquisition before year-end, or wondering what your aircraft would actually bring, our sales and acquisitions desk is available 24/7 at (858) 529-7860 or quotes@onflyair.com. We will give you an honest read on the market for your specific aircraft, not the headline version.