The General Aviation Manufacturers Association has released new figures showing that GA aircraft manufacturers continue to struggle in 2011.
In the first six months of 2011, 791 GA aircraft were delivered worldwide compared to 936 in the same period last year – a drop of 15.5 per cent. Billings for GA aircraft totalled US $7.3 billion, down 22.3 per cent.
Piston-powered aircraft shipments totalled 387, compared to the 424 delivered in the first six months of 2010, an 8.7 per cent decrease. Turboprop shipments declined 8.9 per cent to 143 units in 2011, compared to 157 units during this same period in 2010. And there were 261 business jet deliveries, a 26.5 per cent decrease from the 355 last year.
While these figures point to the struggles the industry is still facing, it should be noted that 419 of those 791 aircraft were delivered in the second quarter of 2011, compared to 372 in the first quarter.
Most delivered models
After playing second fiddle to Cirrus in recent years, Cessna scored the highest number of deliveries for any one model in the first half of 2011, racking up 61 deliveries of its new C162 Skycatcher LSA (flight-tested in our July/August 2011 print issue). This was closely followed by Cirrus with the SR22T, the new turbocharged version of the popular SR22. Cessna also had the highest number of deliveries overall with 259, followed by Cirrus with 118 and Diamond with 87.
The full list of 2011 deliveries to date by manufacturer are below.
- American Champion Aircraft: 19
- Bombardier: 69
- Cessna: 259 (including 61 C162 Skycatchers and 31 208B Grand Caravans)
- Cirrus: 118 (including 55 SR22Ts and 48 SR22s)
- Dassault Falcon Jet: 19
- Diamond Aircraft: 87 (including 40 DA42s and 22 DA40s)
- Embraer: 31 (including 14 Phenom 300s and 12 Phenom 100s)
- GippsAero: 4 (all GA8 Airvans)
- Gulfstream Aerospace: 47
- Hawker Beechcraft: 80 (including 19 King Air 350s and 12 King Air C90GTs)
- Liberty Aerospace: 3
- Mooney Aircraft: 0
- Pacific Aerospace: 3
- Piaggio Aero: 2
- Pilatus: 25 (all PC-12s)
- Piper Aircraft: 59 (including 14 PA-46-500TP Meridians and 14 PA-46-350P Malibu Mirages)
- Quest Aircraft: 5
- SOCATA: 12 (all TBM 850s)
Cessna delivered 61 C162 Skycatchers in the first half of 2011. (John Absolon)
