Response Aviation Search in Crain Currency: Why Family Offices Are Buying Private Jets Again

Crain Currency — the Crain publication covering family wealth — has published a feature on the return of whole-aircraft ownership among family offices: "Why family offices are buying private jets again," by Alec Foege. Response Aviation Search principal partner Andrew Gutterman is quoted throughout, alongside the CEO of Jetcraft, sales leadership at JetHQ, the founder of Jettly, and the head of the aviation practice at Shackelford, McKinley & Norton.

The market backdrop the article lays out: the General Aviation Manufacturers Association reported 854 new business-jet deliveries in 2025, an 11.8% increase over 2024, and Jetcraft recorded $13.4 billion of pre-owned transaction value in 2024 with a forecast of 11,202 pre-owned transactions worth $73.9 billion between 2025 and 2029. The through-line from the advisers quoted is that this cycle looks different from the post-COVID surge: less emotional buying, more balance-sheet reasoning. Purchases are being justified on productivity, control of time, security, and — handled properly — tax treatment.

The case study at the center is a Response Aviation Search engagement

The article's ownership story is one we know well. A family with a thriving technology business in the Northeast was shuttling principals and senior executives between offices from Maine to Georgia. After genuine due diligence — physical inspections, chartered "test drives" of competing models — they settled on an Embraer Phenom 300. When the business expanded into Europe a year later, they added a Gulfstream. Response Aviation Search managed both sales, and as Andrew tells Crain, the pattern is becoming typical: families that buy and really use an aircraft tend to justify either adding another or upgrading to do more with one.

"Kind of like a time machine"

"Having a private jet is kind of like a time machine." — Andrew Gutterman, in Crain Currency

Fractional programs, jet cards, and charter all deliver the experience at lower cost — but as the article puts it, only whole ownership delivers full access. Andrew's example: an executive covering four or five European countries in two days, leaving Monday morning and home by lunch on Wednesday. There is no conceivable way to do that on commercial air traffic; on your own aircraft it is routine.

On the tax window

Current legislation allows business owners to write off 100% of a qualifying aircraft's cost in the year of purchase, and Andrew is direct about the scale of that: where else do you find a $30 to $100 million write-off? The article balances that with real skepticism worth hearing — Jetcraft's Chad Anderson warns of the day of reckoning when the aircraft sells, and aviation counsel David Norton notes that of every ten clients who arrive excited about bonus depreciation, only about five actually qualify. Flying to a vacation home does not become a business expense because a family office owns the aircraft. Our view matches the article's: the tax treatment can materially improve an acquisition that already makes operational sense; it should never be the reason for one.

The part we would underline: the asset is only as good as the people running it

The caution Andrew raises in the piece is the one we see proven most often — poor management of the asset can produce millions in unnecessary costs. His recommendations to Crain: a dedicated full-time flight crew rather than contract pilots, and an experienced director of maintenance, whose decisions about schedules, repairs, and operations compound into significant savings over time.

"Everything in aviation is a six-figure mistake, at least." — Andrew Gutterman, in Crain Currency

That is the heart of our practice. The purchase decision gets the headlines, but the hiring decisions that follow — who flies the aircraft, who maintains it, who runs the flight department — determine whether the asset delivers the productivity that justified it. As family offices professionalize everything else on the balance sheet, the aviation function deserves the same discipline — governed, benchmarked, and staffed to the same standard.

The full article is available at Crain Currency: https://www.craincurrency.com/lifestyle-and-luxury/why-family-offices-are-buying-private-jets-again/

If your family is weighing first ownership, a step-up, or how to build the flight department around the aircraft, that is the conversation Response Aviation Search exists for. Reach us through the contact page — the first conversation is always without obligation.