$4.8B and 436 Airplanes, Worldwide, Shows Improvement But With Some Soft Spots

It has been a brutal year for the General and Business Aviation industry... and this, after a number of equally brutal quarters across 2009 and 2010.

While some companies show some steadiness that was evident in previous months and even some incremental progress, its only fair to note that these numbers are an abysmal drop from what we saw just a few short years ago... long before the US government, the media, a bad economy, and public perception declared war on all things aviation.

Over the course of 2011, from Q1 to Q3, a number of companies showed staying power and improvement -- but others, not so much... Boeing moved BBJs in Q3, versus only one int he first half of the year. Bombardier went from $1.25B in Q1 to $16B in Q3 (after a very soft Q2). Cessna rocketed from 106 airplanes and $276M in Q1 to 165 birds and $451B in Q3 (including 41 little ol' Skycatchers!). Cirrus plummeted from 61 airplanes in Q1 to 48 airplanes in Q3, showing a real need for some serious rethinking of their marketing plans and abilities.

Dassault went from 9 airplane in Q1 to 16 in Q3. Diamond showed solid improvement and steadiness in their core markets with 37 airplanes sold in Q1, and 45 in Q3 --DA40s and DA42s seem to be holding their own fairly well. Embraer went from 8 to 18 airplanes (Q1-Q3). Gulfstream remains a plane-building and marketing superstar with 24, 23 and 25 airplanes sold across the 3 quarters of 2011... with the latest quarter worth $1.1B.

Hawker Beech slid from 37 airplanes, Q1 to 33 in Q3... Little old Maule sold an airplane, doubling their total for the year. Piaggio ha a solid 3Q with four airplanes old versus 1 in Q1, and 2 in Q2. Pilatus went from 8 airplanes to 14 over Q1-Q3-- a really impressive improvement. And Piper, despite recent turmoil, went from 26 airplanes in Q1 (and $26M), to 34 airplanes and $35M in the latest quarter -- another positive showing. Finishing up the list Quest moved 3 airplanes in 3Q, vs 2 in the first quarter while Socata doubled its results by scaling up from 5 airplanes sold in Q1 to a very solid 10 birds in the latest quarter.

FMI: www.gama.aero, www.aero-tv.net, www.youtube.com/aerotvnetwork, http://twitter.com/AeroNews