GAMA Reports Strong 2025 for OEMs

It’s the unofficial kickoff to the GA year.

The annual gathering of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) for its report on the previous year’s shipments and billings brings together the cognoscenti of the clan for a big press conference and almost-as-big board meeting, plus power lunches, dinner conclaves, and a reception of suits.

For the second year now, the press gathered at the Jack Morton Auditorium at the George Washington University in the heart of Washington, D.C., for a record-setting report-out: The billings hit $31 billion for airplanes and $4.7 billion for rotorcraft, topping $35 billion overall for the first time, an increase of 14.6%. Total units surpassed 4,000 for the third year, with 4,168 airplanes and helicopters moving out the door. The big win came on the business jet side, with 90 more aircraft delivered, putting 11.8% more into the coffers of those OEMs across the board.

Turns out that iterating successfully on past winners remains the default mode for the general aviation industry, and 2025 was no different. Case in point: Though Bombardier dropped the Global 8000 officially into the market in December, the ability to transform the Global 7500s into their faster (Mach 0.95) brethren—a service bulletin also released in late 2025 offers the upgrade—undoubtedly kept sales of the 7500 in play.

And the growth wasn’t only registered in the North American market, as noted by GAMA’s current chairman, Ron Draper, president and CEO of Textron Aviation, during the event. “The North American market continues to lead,” he said. “However, in 2025, the Latin American market saw an increase, bringing it to the third largest share at 11%. In 2024, they were the smallest at 5%.”

Pistons shipments eked out a positive gain at 0.6% (+10 units). The modest decline in turboprop and rotorcraft numbers is small, but notable. Still, every segment reported better-than-2019 numbers.

Why the Market Behaved This Way

With strong flight hours growth in jets and steady deliveries in upper reaches with Bombardier’s Global 8000 and Gulfstream’s G800 entering service, the high end did well, along with a concerted push from Textron Aviation, Embraer, and Dassault. Bombardier’s showing reflected its overall turnaround, with 157 total shipments and a book-to- bill ratio of 1.4:1. Paired with Gulfstream’s great year (158) and Embraer’s (244 total, with 155 in the executive aviation segment), the numbers helped drive up bizjets overall.

But it wasn’t just the ultra-long-range models that supported the thrust. Embraer’s Phenom 300, touted by the company as the fastest light jet in production, has remained the market leader for 13 consecutive years now, with 23 units delivered in 2025. And the Cirrus Vision Jet deliveries ticked up by five units, to 106.

What Woes Hit Turboprop Land?

The notable lags in turboprop deliveries warrant more scrutiny, and you might think here you’d see the effects of tariffs, with EU-based OEMs suffering most. Indeed, Pilatus Aircraft was off by 14 units on the PC-12 after it halted deliveries for a period in 2025. And Daher came off by six units, down five in the TBM 960 line and one overall in Kodiak 100/900 segments.

There were some rumblings that delays came down to late powerplant deliveries, but it couldn’t be the entire story, as Epic showed signs of finally getting its feet under it, with a healthy increase in deliveries of the E1000 GX and AX from 21 to 28, and Piper M700 Fury shipments rose from 24 to 25. Plus TextAv’s Cessna Grand Caravan notched robust numbers as well.

While it may be easy to point a finger at one critical component—the powerplant—driving completion delays, it isn’t the engine in isolation but a compounding of issues, according to folks I spoke with off the record. The company must be prepared to deal with similar delays in the course of doing business, especially as customers consistently put forth the demand for new aircraft.

During an industry panel following the report, Daher Aircraft CEO Nicolas Chabbert pointed this out. “I’m very keen on making sure that every day my team is focusing and satisfying the customers. And today, I have to say that we have great customers that accept things that, even in my career, 15 years ago, they wouldn’t have accepted.” Later he expanded upon that, noting customers for the moment accept the delays as a part of an overall malaise, perhaps. However, the OEM teams have to treat this resignation a transitory moment and not depend on that acquiescence to continue.

Tariffs in Play—for Some

Back to tariffs: Pilatus only paused deliveries for three months, after the 39% tariff imposed on Swiss products was walked back in September, the net being the PC24 was only off by one unit. GAMA President and CEO Jim Viola praised the industry and government partners for navigating back to the zero-tariff regime on aerospace products.

But, tariffs were a problem for the avionics OEMs. Garmin, for one, has been busy mitigating the knock-on effect to its customers. During the industry leaders panel, Phil Straub, managing director of Garmin Aviation, illuminated the challenge. “I’d say for the electronics industry, it’s a little bit different,” he said. “With tariffs, while we have that resolved for aerospace products, remember the components [Garmin buys] are still subject to [other tariffs]. So if nothing else, [there was] just better predictability … Ideally, the tariffs would go away.”

Straub also noted another supply chain issue unique to the avionics world: “So, you’ve heard about all the data centers going up? They use a lot of graphics processor units. Well, those consume a lot of memory chips. High-bandwidth memory chips are putting a strain on that supply chain. Generally we manage through it, but there are always challenges.”

But it can’t be going too poorly for them, as Garmin reported Feb. 18 in an official release: “Revenue from the aviation segment increased 16% in the fourth quarter and 13% for the year with growth contributions from both the OEM and aftermarket product categories.” Clearly the Garmin team has been successful enough in working through those challenges.

“Embracing Agency Change”

ATC modernization was a third hot topic amongst the leaders—and one that Viola had touched upon in his remarks on the Year in Review. GAMA is a key part of the steering committee of the Modern Skies coalition formed following the DCA accident in January 2025.

Viola applauded the United States Congress for the current investment: “The coalition is prioritizing funding for FAA to make critical ATC technology and infrastructure investment, strengthening controller and technician staffing and training, and exempting the FAA from future government shutdowns,” he said. “Congress took a big step forward in terms of progress on air traffic control investment with a $12.5 billion down payment. These funds are already [being deployed], and we’ve seen 37% of telecon connections transformed, 612 radar sites, 162 radio sites converted. Thirteen towers that are now doing electronic flight strips, and [there are] 52 new surface safety initiatives.”

While these are important steps, much more work remains, and Viola noted that Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy has estimated $20 billion more needs to be invested in the near term. Viola also noted that issues in recent years regarding the slowdown of certification and validation processes within the FAA were on the path to being addressed, but more work needs to be done, particularly in the coordination of certification and validation efforts globally. While his presentation touched briefly upon technology advancements as a means to continue achieving sustainability targets, there was no update on the industry’s Eliminate Aviation Gasoline Lead Emissions initiative, which has seen much advancement of late.

In a later statement GAMA called on stakeholders to comment on the FAA’s draft transition plan aimed at universal availability of unleaded high-octane avgas by 2030. “The EAGLE initiative continues to see progress towards a safe transition to an unleaded future state. The FAA has released a draft transition plan and opened it for public comment. We encourage all stakeholders to review the plan and submit comments by the March 13 deadline. GAMA remains committed to working with EAGLE and stakeholders to reach our goal of transitioning to unleaded fuel by the end of 2030.”