This year has been busy so far at Textron. In the first quarter, the Wichita-based OEM also saw the first production rollout and certification of its Cessna SkyCourier, the return of its turbocharged Cessna 182T and the certification and first delivery of its M2 Gen2.

“It is a good time in the market for private aviation. The new customers coming into private aviation are having good experiences, and we anticipate most of them will stay,” says O’Bannion. “Market studies show that of all the people who can afford to operate, charter or own one of our products, only about 10% do so, while the other 90% choose to fly commercially and purchase a first-class or business class ticket.”

After a good year in 2018, O’Bannion says there were a lot of expectations for growth going into 2019 across business aviation. “While 2019 didn't grow quite to the expectations, it was a solid year. And then 2020 happened and in March, people just stopped flying. Later in the year, we saw flight levels start to pick up particularly in leisure travel, as more people realised the time savings. Throughout 2021, that just accelerated every quarter.”

O’Bannion concludes: “While we still aren’t quite to the levels of 2019, we continue to see favourable market conditions, including improved aircraft utilisation, low pre-owned inventory levels and strong customer demand and order activity.”