The percentage of used business jets for sale in October reached 15.7 percent, down from its peak of 16.2 percent in August according to a Credit Suisse report, but brokers aren't ready to declare an end to the down market.

"I can see light at the end of the tunnel, but I don't know how many miles away it is," said one dealer in the southwestern U.S. told Aviation Week yesterday.

Bottom feeders outnumber all other categories of buyers, he and other marketers say, and only aircraft at rock-bottom prices are moving with savvy buyers snapping up bank repos. Some would-be sellers, noting the market firming up, have tried to raise their prices only to find potential sales fade away, they say.

One broker who specializes in the international market said, "We've noticed the phone is ringing more and we're getting more hits on the web site." He said airplanes are not moving out of the U.S. to overseas buyers as they often did in the past because the modifications to meet EASA rules are prohibitively expensive.

Looking farther down the road, with production of new-manufacture aircraft virtually at a standstill, dealers know the current inventory of available airframes won't last forever, and when supply dwindles, they've also learned through past history that the OEMs won't be able to respond instantly. At that point, the pricing of good, used aircraft has nowhere to go but up.

Photo credit: Benet Wilson