Jet Agent is like an extra member of the family when it comes to purchasing an aircraft, according to founder and MD Anatoly Parkhomchuk.
The process of buying an aircraft, especially as a new entrant, is a complicated and often drawn-out process. London Biggin Hill Airport-based Jet Agent was founded on the vision of helping buyers through these challenging transactions. Personalisation is at the top of the value chain, says Parkhomchuk (pictured above), an aviation veteran formerly of Ocean Sky Private Jet Company and Hawker Beechcraft Corporation. Jet Agent caters to a wide range of demands including corporate travel, medevac, special missions and aircraft management consultation.
“A lot of customers think aircraft ownership is similar to buying a car. Which is completely wrong,” he explains. “It’s far more complicated. You need to have a plan and this plan can be streamlined. That said, you still need to educate the customer on how they can best use their asset, and what is possible in order for them not to be disappointed.”
The transactional process is also very different from buying any other vehicle, says Parkhomchuk. It requires a specialist to build the transaction processes, streamline the documents and aircraft technical inspections, followed by aircraft acceptance to the transaction closing and final aircraft delivery.
“I can tell you 100%, and probably most people in the industry would say the same, every transaction and every pre-owned aircraft is different. So, there are a lot of variables to how a transaction can go, that includes the aircraft itself, sellers and buyer circumstances,” adds Parkhomchuk.
Jet Agent was founded in 2019 and spent its formative years in the midst of the covid pandemic. But Parkhomchuk says the industry was much better prepared this time around to deal with hardship versus the 2008 financial crash. “When the pandemic hit obviously there was a lot of business impacted and uncertainty, but because the only way to travel was on a private aircraft throughout and early stages pandemic exit for flexibility based on logistical point of view and been also influenced by fear to be infected, this heightened demand. So, manufacturers were very clever this time, they did not ramp up production as they previously did over the decade ago — some even reduced it — and that has created backlogs allowing manufacturers to raise prices and keep the demand.”
“That’s why you don’t have white tails at this moment despite the shortage of lucrative and attractive finance instruments and the demand is still strong right now. Almost every manufacturer’s next available position is 2026, and or already 2027 at that. This was not the case before 2019.”
Parkhomchuk sees the wider aviation industry, business aviation included, as a fluid, live organism. Upon which there are a number of external factors that impact how it behaves. “Apart from the pandemic we had a war going on, and now not just in one part of the world. These unfortunate and tragic manmade events are heavily impacting the industry in many ways. The geography of buyers is changing, the buyer has become younger than they were 10-15 years ago, especially with the increase in new millennial billionaires.
“It is difficult to predict what will happen, but I think sellers have now had a taste of this increase that we have experienced since the fourth quarter [Q4] 2021 in aircraft values across all market, and they are just waiting for buyers to act, whilst buyers are waiting for aircraft values to come down. There is a strong evidence of ongoing market correction since Q1 2023, despite Q1 2024 values are unchanged compared to Q4 2023, that was caused by boost in transactions in the North American market with the aim to capitalise on year end depreciation bonus that has reduced again in 2024 but might be back soon again in full force,” he says.
“So, we have an unusual transition period right now where you see book values of some aircraft drop to almost or close to the same value as 2019, but there are sellers who are not selling for that.”
