"Clearly, there has been some overinvestment" in reaction to the business jet boom of the 1990s, and that's why the market today is sloppy, with aircraft prices falling and too much inventory on hand.
But the worst years to come "are better than any year before 1999. And beyond 2006 the market will resume its growth."

That's the latest word from Richard Aboulafia, aircraft industry seer at the Fairfax, Virginia-based Teal Group.

Teal forecasts production of 6,908 business jets over the next ten years, and says that in 2002 dollars they will be worth a not-at-all-shabby $95.2 billion. By value, almost 45% of them will be high-end jets. On top of that will be production of 174 corporate versions of jetliners and regional jets, worth another $6.7 billion.

By company, Bombardier still edges out a larger, Galaxy-encompassing Gulfstream, barely, taking 25.5% of the coming decade's business to Gulfstream's 25.4%, Teal says.

"Cessna will be number three with 19.2%, followed by Dassault with 18.1%. A troubled Raytheon will be left with 10%," Aboulafia predicts.

Teal concedes that its startlingly precise prognostications are predicated on large current backlogs, and that much of the collective industry backlog is "unverifiable."

"A lack of transparency means there are few indicators of the market's long-term direction," Aboulafia says. The other big doubt-maker is the fractional business. The demise of United Airlines' Avolar, which had been viewed by many as representing a new model that would provide a near-seamless bridge from commercial flying to the business jet, casts a pall of doubt over the entire sector.

Profits, too may be problematic in future. "Margins in this segment of the aviation industry tend to be higher than the other segments, but this will probably change," Aboulafia opines. Again, the problem is fractionals: "Much of the industry's growth has been due to fractional ownership companies, which are better able to exert pricing pressure on manufacturers," the Teal man says. "This pressure will increase as the fractional industry restructures."