The recession from December 2007 to June 2009 had a massive impact on the general aviation (GA) aircraft manufacturing industry. In 2010, however, the downtrend stopped and the number of aircraft sold increased by 5.0% worldwide from 2,020 in 2010 to 2,120 in 2011. Shipments of aircraft manufactured in the U.S. increased by 9.8% from 1,334 in 2010 to 1,465 in 2011. In 2012, worldwide production grew slightly to 2,133 aircraft (up 0.6%), while shipments of aircraft produced in the U.S. increased 3.3%.
From 2007-2010, the global production of GA aircraft dropped a staggering 52.8% from 4,276 aircraft in 2007 to 2,020 in 2010. In the United States, manufacturers have experienced a 59.3% drop in aircraft production from 3,279 to 1,334 units.
A key reason for the major decrease in sales, apart from the poor economic environment, is that the average price per aircraft worldwide almost doubled from 2007 to 2010. This is discussed in further detail below.
General aviation aircraft manufacturers have experienced a relatively modest drop in revenues as compared to the massive decrease in sales volumes.
From 2007-2011, revenues from the worldwide production of general aviation aircraft decreased by 12.8% from $21.84 billion to $19.04 billion. In the United States, manufacturers experienced a much larger 29.7% drop in revenues from $11.9 billion in 2007 to $8.4 billion in 2011. In the United States, however, revenues actually increased in 2011 by $531 million (+6.7%) to $8.4 billion vs. $7.9 billion last year.
The relatively small decrease in revenues is because manufacturers have been able to raise prices without, at the same time, experiencing too much of a drop in aircraft sales.
For more information please follow the link via General Aviation Market Data | Aircraft Sales & Shipments 2011/2012.