Private aviation market update: Vista Jet's $600M raise, Starlink adoption, and bonus depreciation tailwinds

Summary

Preston Holland — a private aviation industry professional — makes the case that the market is navigating a controlled cooldown, not a crisis, with two near-term catalysts that could change the transaction picture quickly.

Market cycle

Private jet valuations peaked in fall 2022, tracking the broader asset bubble that inflated during the pandemic when marginal flyers who could afford private finally committed to it. Since then, the market has been deflating toward pre-2020 norms, though it hasn't fully arrived there yet. Charter demand in 2021–22 has not come back, and the fringe buyers — Holland quotes an aviation executive calling them "Wheels Up King Air flyers going back to comfort plus" — have exited. What's grown in their place is fractional ownership, with NetJets and Flexjet pulling volume away from both outright ownership and charter.

Bonus depreciation

The single biggest structural tailwind is 100% bonus depreciation — what Trump called "100% expensing" in his State of the Union address. The policy lets buyers write off the full purchase price in year one, which Holland says translates to roughly a 20% effective discount on purchase price through tax savings. It nearly passed Congress last year before Senate Republicans blocked it to deny the Biden administration a win before the election. Holland says clients are expecting it to clear "any day now," and when it does, it will directly accelerate aircraft transactions.

Vista Jet's $600M raise

Vista Jet closed a $600 million fundraise, down from a reported target of roughly $1 billion that leaked last fall and a revised $800 million figure circulated in February. Holland frames the raise not as growth capital but as a deleveraging exercise. Vista went on a PE-style acquisition spree — buying ExoJet, Talon Air, and others — while leveraging up its fleet. The raise restructures that debt and frees cash flow to service members. Vista is Malta-based, which limits public disclosure requirements.

Holland is skeptical that private aviation businesses benefit from public market structures. Fuel price swings, pilot salary inflation (which doubled when commercial airlines raised pay), and engine maintenance costs make quarter-to-quarter reporting brutal. Companies that have gone public in the space have consistently struggled because institutional investors don't understand the cost dynamics.

Starlink adoption

Starlink is the fastest-growing in-flight connectivity option but still represents a small share of the overall installed fleet. The retrofit costs $150,000–$350,000 per aircraft, and the unlimited service plan runs around $10,000 per month for flights above 300 mph — compared to roughly $200 per month for slower-speed use. The legacy ground-to-air systems, like the ATG-4000, are being phased out as operators choose between newer satellite options.

Autonomous flight

Full autonomy is a regulatory problem more than a technology one. The FAA's entire framework is built around a licensed pilot, and re-engineering that for automated systems requires new regulatory categories from scratch. The most concrete near-term product is Garmin's Autoland feature, already available on King Airs, TBMs, and Vision Jets: a single button that, in an emergency, communicates with air traffic control, identifies the nearest airport, and lands the aircraft without pilot input. Garmin is positioning it strictly for emergencies, not routine operations.

Helicopter startup Skyrise is taking a different approach — a fly-by-wire system that keeps a human pilot in control but defines a flight envelope the pilot physically cannot exceed, preventing unrecoverable situations. Holland flew its simulator last summer.

On the broader flying car side, US venture appetite is fading after years of missed timelines, and Gulf sovereign wealth funds are absorbing the slack — a sign the sector is becoming a patient-capital story rather than a venture one.

G650ER vs. BBJ

For buyers choosing between the two, Holland favors the Gulfstream G650ER on liquidity grounds. BBJs average around 450 days on market because the buyer pool is effectively two segments — Grant Cardone types and Saudi princes — and if neither wants it, it sits. The G650ER also lands at smaller airports, which is the whole point of private aviation given the US has more airports than Chipotle locations.