Robust or bust? To be or not to be? These are the questions.

Is this or is this not a recovery?  

I wrote an article recently about how to measure a recovery. In my daily conversations with industry players as well as prospects and clients this same subject comes up. Are we in a recovery? What shape is it? In financial circles we hear descriptions of a financial recovery’s shape as “V”, “W”, “U”. In other words will the recovery be as dramatic as the decline, might we have a double dip or will it be a sloped upward slow methodical recovery?

Hard to say although, however, you define or shape it, compared to practically no business over the preceding 15 months this seems like boom times! Still there are many obstacles to what might be considered a full recovery in our industry, this is where it starts. One deal at a time. In fact depending who you ask, the shape of the recovery may feel and be described differently. The new aircraft manufacturers might still report that 2010 will be problematic. They might feel as if the high pre-owned inventory levels still pull the speed of their recovery down. Many brokers and dealers selling older, higher time aircraft might still say they are having trouble defining the bottom of the market. Even a recent edition of AIN online speaks to a stalled recovery based on inventory not declining in the last two months. So plenty of talk of the “W” recovery. Yet I have to say our real activity and real sale trend is much more in line with a solid, steady recovery.

So the more I think about it the more that I realize that I am not sure at this point it is important to try to draw a picture of the recovery path. I think it is far more important to just speak to a positive change and a brighter outlook and keep working hard and selling one aircraft at a time. So we can drop the Shakespearian references and just embrace the change.

As an industry we also must not forget to stay very focused on the regulatory, tax and security issues that are all around us and must be addressed by each of us. Let me remind you to go often to the NBAA website, www.nbaa.org and stay up and in tune with all of these critical industry issues. A couple of other industry focused websites are the NBAA/GAMA sponsored site, “No Plane No Gain” www.noplanenogain.org and “Alliance for Aviation Across America”, www.aviationacrossamerica.org. Your continued vigilance to our industry needs and challenges is critical to a continued recovery industry wide.