Boutsen Aviation has recently bought and sold a brace of King Air C90-B aircraft.

“We have about 10 aircraft for sale at the moment,” said Thierry Boutsen, the company president. “They include King Air, Citation and Learjet aircraft. There is a variety of aircraft that we offer for sale on behalf of our clients.

“In December we bought a couple of King Air C90-B aircraft and sold them almost immediately,” he explained. “One of the customers was in the United States and the other was in Luxembourg.”

He reports that the company had been contacted by these customers, because they were looking to purchase the best value for money King Air C90-B aircraft on the market at that time.

“Part of our activity is aircraft acquisition, so we started looking worldwide for the best available model at the best price for our clients,” he said.

“We did find quite a few of them available, but the best ones were selected following a strict list of criteria and options that the customer wanted to have. These included equipment, total times and remaining times on the engine.”

According to Boutsen, the company negotiates all the time. “When we make the acquisition of

an aircraft for a customer, we offer a very positive service, because we

are in constant contact with the world market, so we know the price of the transactions that have happened in the last two, three or four months,” he said.

“This enables us to price the value of any aircraft that is available on

the market exactly.”

The prices of aircraft have dropped constantly for the past two or three years, he told us, but prices have now stabilised.

“We see some of the low-time, young aircraft that are currently on the market for a very good price. So the customers have a choice and there are some very nice aircraft available at the moment – it’s the right time for them to buy,” he said. “This is because of the state of the economy worldwide.

“Prices have dropped because of the inventory and perhaps there

are now too many aeroplanes on the market. Or perhaps there are more aircraft available than there were three years ago,” he said.

“Maybe some companies need to get rid of their aircraft, because they are ceasing operations, or they are upgrading or downgrading – maybe the need to have their own aircraft is no longer there.”

He continued: “In general, the level of inventory is much higher than it was three years ago – that’s why prices are down. It is an

excellent opportunity to purchase

a plane now.”

Boutsen feels that high-quality aircraft are selling very well, but that older aircraft are not being sold, unless they are suitably priced.

“I would say that it hurts more for a customer who bought a King Air or a Citation I two years ago, to sell it for half-price today. Because these aircraft have lost 50 per cent of their value,” he explained.

“It hurts more to do that, than for a customer who bought a new plane two years ago and only loses 20 per cent of the value when selling it on. It’s a considerable difference.”

The company are very hopeful for the future. “We started our business in 1997 and despite the slow-down in the economy, 2003 was by far our best year so far, with the quantity of planes bought and sold and the overall turnover,” he said.

“We’d like to do even better this year. The deals that we are working on at the moment, gives us the hope that we will be very successful in this.