By Chad Trautvetter

NBAA released a new study today showing that even during the worst economic times since the Great Depression, companies that relied on business aviation outperformed those that did not. According to NBAA, the companies that use business aircraft have better shareholder value and recovered from the recession more quickly than their peers.

The study, “Business Aviation: Maintaining Shareholder Value Through Turbulent Times," is the fourth in the business aviation users study series to be completed by Nexa Advisors. It concludes that companies in the S&P 500 that use business aviation achieved superior financial performance in a number of key measures and also displayed superior ability to respond to the severe downturn. 

“This answers the question as to why so many American enterprises continue to depend upon business aviation, even in–and perhaps, especially in–tough economic times,” said NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen.

The study found that generally speaking, companies not using business aviation during the recession lost profitability, employees and even dropped off the S&P 500 rankings at far higher rates than companies using business aviation, revealing that use of an airplane for business has a positive impact on enterprise resiliency following what Nexa termed “the Great Recession” period of 2007 to 2011.

For example, the analysis found that jobs at a diverse range of companies that use business aircraft, from consumer to energy, healthcare and industrials, not only recovered but have also grown beyond pre-recession levels, while non-user companies have recovered at much slower rates. Comparisons of employment matched the better performance of business aviation users in financial measures of shareholder value, including revenues, earnings and profit growth and market capitalization.