🔧 Demand Flat Yet the Entire Chain Strained: The Bottleneck Lies in Supply Elasticity
Avi-Go data shows that from January to June 2026, global business jet takeoffs and landings reached 5.8996 million movements, a slight decline of just 0.58% from the 5.9341 million in the same period of 2025. With demand essentially flat, the supply chain remains persistently strained. This contradictory signal confirms the assessment from the AIN roundtable "Managing Supply Chain through Overheated Demand" on June 3, 2026: the bottleneck lies not in demand expansion, but in insufficient elasticity of OEM production capacity as well as MRO slots and manpower. The high concentration of demand amplifies the chokepoints—the Pilatus PC-12, with 447,100 movements, accounted for 19.51% of the Top 15, and the top five aircraft types combined made up 58.26%; geographically, the United States alone claimed 80.31% of the Top 10. As a result, delivery backlogs for best-selling models compound with regional MRO scheduling congestion.
Impact: Extended delivery cycles for popular platforms and pressure on regional MRO scheduling will directly drive up parking costs and demand for replacement capacity among operators of mainstay models such as the PC-12 and Phenom 300; if OEMs and MROs cannot expand slots and technician headcount, the strained situation is unlikely to ease in the short term.
Recommendation: Operators should lock in 2027 heavy-check slots and orders for key components before the end of the third quarter of 2026, avoiding the North American scheduling peak. For highly concentrated aircraft types, it is advisable to evaluate cross-regional MRO diversion plans before August 2026 to hedge against the risks of delivery and turnaround delays.