Business jet deliveries

A Terminal case study that tests whether new business jet registrations in the FAA aircraft registry predict the deliveries Textron and Gulfstream report.

An honest negative. The registry measures something the companies do not report, and it still does not beat their earnings.

Chart: the share of new Citation and Gulfstream deliveries that joined the US register, by quarter, from 2024 to mid-2026. About three in four. — From the full study. Sources: FAA Releasable Aircraft Database; company delivery releases on SEC EDGAR.

From 2024 through June 2026, 310 new Citation jets joined the US register against 399 deliveries Textron reported: 78%. Gulfstream: 275 against 373, or 74%. None of the makers splits deliveries by country.

But airworthiness dates reach the public file weeks to months late. At the second-quarter 2026 earnings releases, the registry showed about three quarters of the quarter’s US deliveries, and all of them only by September 14. A lag-corrected estimate failed its backtest and is not published.

The US share is new information. It arrives after the market has the delivery number. We publish the miss so no one buys a lead the data cannot deliver.