For the first time since the Great Recession, business aircraft brokers “are having to find aircraft for buyers, rather than having to find buyers for aircraft,” Citi Research said today after the investment firm held a roundtable discussion with a group of these brokers on Friday. “The overall sentiment was positive as brokers are busy with high transaction volumes with the potential for pricing to broadly improve over the next year,” adding that it already has some in “some pockets.”

Brokers told Citi that the key determinant to sale is aircraft attractiveness, including age and cockpit/interior configuration. “[Attractive] aircraft aren’t available for long,” said Citi Research U.S. aerospace and defense senior equity analyst Jonathan Raviv.

North America is especially strong, comprising about 80 percent of preowned aircraft sales, above the typical 60 to 70 percent average, he noted. “There’s modest wariness that it is too North American weighted and a suggestion that [aircraft manufacturers] probably want to see broader geographic improvements before raising [new business jet] production,” Raviv concluded.

Business aircraft flying ticked up 2.1 percent year-over-year in the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean last month, according to TraqPak data released today by business aviation research firm Argus International. This was better than the 0.9 percent increase the company had predicted for the month; Argus is calling for a 1 percent increase this month.

Part 91 activity logged another solid month, climbing 3.8 percent from last August. This was followed by a 0.4 percent increase in Part 135 operations, while fractional flying was flat from a year ago.

For the second consecutive month, all business aircraft categories except for light jets recorded gains. Midsize jet flying marked a resurgence last month, rising 4.2 percent, with turboprops not far behind with a 3.1 percent uplift from a year ago. Large-cabin jets, which have been at the top of the leaderboard for most of the past several years, climbed 1.9 percent year-over-year, while light jet activity dropped by 1.6 percent, continuing recent losses in this category.

Part 135 large-cabin jet flying saw the only double-digit gain in individual categories, rising 14.5 percent. Conversely, fractional large-cabin jets posted the only double-digit decrease, falling 24.8 percent.

Our business jet survey is designed to capture timely insights on business jet market conditions directly from industry professionals.

Indicator at 69: our Barclays business jet indicator (bbji), which reflects .100 responses, came in at 69 in august, representing an increase from our prior survey in June at 67 and a new high, indicative of accelerating business jet market improvement. By cabin class, our bbji was led by midsize cabin at 72 and small cabin at 71 with large cabin at 63. Our straight-up measure of overall business conditions came in at 6.6 (0- 10 scale), slightly lower from our prior survey.

Most see recovery sustaining: 64% of respondents believe the recent improvement in market activity is sustainable while only 36% view it as a short-term bounce. Commentary from industry professionals (pages 10-12) indicate a “seller’s” market characterized by very low levels of available high-quality young used inventory along with higher pricing in certain parts of the market.

Pricing main driver of improvement: all components (customer interest, pricing, 12- month outlook, inventory level, willingness to increase inventory) of our bbji came in well above 50 in august, indicative of sequential improvement. The improvement in our index was mainly driven by a 14$ increase in our pricing score with both our pricing and inventory score hitting new highs.

Positive on Bizjet: after nearly a decade at trough levels, key business jet market indicators now all signal improvement, including much lower young used inventory levels along with improved pricing, increasing flight activity and higher corporate capx. In addition, our survey of industry professionals indicates rapidly improving market conditions. We have overweight ratings on bbd, gd, and txt..