What is the best aircraft to buy? (2025 Fleet)

It is clear that “the best aircraft to buy” must meet the initial (or priority) budget requirements (whether for purchase or operation), and then the analysis of what one intends to do or use. Therefore, this article provides data on events that occurred in the past, especially in the year 2024, in order to indicate the fleet of models that may have a natural market appreciation, as well as retention of their value, based on numbers made available by regulatory bodies and independent associations, calculated statistics, and nothing more. It does not specifically address the issue of which aircraft one should buy, denigrating a number of other similar alternatives.

Having highlighted these considerations, let's get to the fun!

Stay until the end, because the result is beautiful to see! You will even notice that some planes that represent a retraction worldwide, significant growth in Brazil. And this is not written anywhere, except here at AEROFLAP.

Well, compared to 2018, the aircraft fleet in Brazil grew by around 13% in the period, totaling 10.849 aircraft in an airworthy condition, that is, there are no impediments to flying. This increase can be explained by imports of used aircraft, deliveries of new ones by manufacturers, activation of previously grounded aircraft, new aircraft operating under leasing, among other reasons.

The number only reflects aircraft in flight conditions, disregarding other considerations, such as their registration category, which may be private, regular, spraying, instruction, glider, experimental, ultralight, etc.

However, today the aviation scene represents this list with the 15 largest aircraft fleets in Brazil.

Source: RAB. ANAC. December 2024.

From this list, the fleets that grew the most in one year (2023 – 2024) were:

The most interesting thing about the last table is Seneca's growth, which impressively reverses a historic annual decline since 2018 to a growth – albeit timid compared to the total fleet – in 2024, as can be seen in the following image. In fact, this fact keeps the model almost untouchable as the leader of the largest fleet in Brazil, disregarding agricultural aircraft.

In of percentage variation, which could be interpreted as a “potential” for growth (ratio between the difference in the periods analyzed), we note the opposite of the list above:

• We see the C525 (CJ, CJ1 and CJ1+) with the highest percentage: 19,5% (additional 16 units);
• Followed by BE55 (aka “Barinho”): 18% (8 more units); and,
• F2TH (Falcon 2000): 17% (3 more units in the year).

However, we can define:

This is the conclusion of a year of the market in Brazil.

Now, I wonder what you, dear reader, are thinking, “Oh, but it must be different in the United States. So much so that these guys won’t even talk about it.” Anyway, we mined the data provided by the FAA and were able to come to some conclusions. Evidently, even our team is surprised by the result, which serves as a BOMB to our perceptions of a “developing” country.

The funniest thing was to notice that there are so many numbers that even Excel crashes sometimes before completing the import. So we abandoned the old tool and started focusing on data manipulation in other platforms, such as Python.

Well, the goal, therefore, is to bring a reality from a foreign country to compare with ours. That's why we'll refrain from going into details. Anyway, let's look at the numbers for 2024, just as we did for Brazil.

This is the aviation landscape in the US, containing the 15 largest aircraft fleets:

From this list, only the Boeing 737 appears with a different engine type. The rest are all piston engines. Therefore, in order to make things clearer, we skipped some items on the list until we get to the first turboprop:

Finally, the PC12 wins as the largest turboprop fleet! However, its success is not reflected in Brazil because the model still has 49 units in flight condition, which keeps the fleet at number 53, as the largest in the country.

As for business jets, in the US the largest fleet belongs to the C560 (Citation V, Ultra and Encore), with 582 aircraft flying, and the Phenom 100, with 568. Impressively, the third largest fleet of business jets is CirrusJet, with 564 aircraft.

Now, let's look at the biggest changes in the fleet in 2024 in the US:

With the exception of the Boeing, all are piston engines. So let's skip ahead to the first turboprop:

However, the US market summary in the year 2024:

Well, how can we relate this data to the market in Brazil? “Now that the business is starting to get more interesting…”

Do you that one of our conclusions is that the PA46T (Meridian/M500/M600) is the turboprop that grew the most in 2024 with an increase of 21 aircraft per year in Brazil? Well, on the other side of the hemisphere the model had a retraction of 89. (To understand more about this aircraft, read another article by clicking here, posted about the model).

The King Air C90 (all versions of BE9L), whose history and curiosities we publish here, there was an increase of 9 units in the Brazilian fleet from 23 to 24, and 17 units from 22 to 23. Meanwhile, in the USA, there was a reduction of 34 aircraft in the fleet from 23 to 24.

Continuing along the same lines, the Phenom 100 saw an increase of 11 aircraft in the Brazilian fleet, despite the reduction of 61 in the US.

The Citation Bravo (C550) had an increase of 5 aircraft in Brazil, while it lost 57 in the US. It is similar to the Citation Mustang (C510), which ed an increase of 4 aircraft, in a continuous annual rise, while it had a reduction of 69 in the US.

Anyway, these different markets are interesting, aren't they? If you like this type of content, stay with us and if you need advice on buying or selling your aircraft, don't hesitate to us by email at [email protected]. We have a qualified, handpicked team to assist you, always based on the best studies, analyses and realistic, true data.

See you!