If [BLANK] is what you find too expensive about flying...

[ateamer]

Indeed. Out of the top ten selling new planes in 2023, only one was from Textron. It was not the highest seller.

10 best-selling piston airplanes in 2023 — General Aviation News

2023 was a “banner year” for general aviation, with piston airplanes deliveries increasing 11.8% to 1,682. But what were the top 10 best-selling piston airplanes of the year?

generalaviationnews.com

Textron bought Pipistrel a couple yeras back. But brand T is still just a fraction of piston sales.

 

[StraightnLevel]

I think that neither I, nor anyone, should get to decide what is "excessive" profit. After 275 years, Adam Smith (of "Wealth of Nations" fame) is STILL right. Command economies have collapsed everywhere they've been tried -- to say nothing of 100 million people slaughtered because they were inconvenient to Marx's greater vision.

I shouldn't have to look under the hood of Textron's cost structure. There's too much incentive and ample opportunity for them to hide the ball. If the market clearing price of a given part includes profit above marginal cost, there is incentive for competitors to undercut the incumbents -- until regulatory restrictions stop them. Regulation is a subsidy to the incumbent, who is invested in the status quo, and is better able to absorb the cost of regulatory compliance than a challenger.

Sure, regulations support incumbents in almost every case.

HOWEVER, I disagree completely that we don't get to decide what profits are "excessive". Investors certainly make that call every day.

If I see a competitor getting 25% net earnings, I'm going to find a way to enter their market space and take some of that from them at, say 15-20%. When I see a competitor operating at the 6.7% that Textron is earning, I'm going to let them keep their market share, because there's just not enough meat on that bone to be worth pursuing.

My point here is that while someone may point to a single part's retail price as evidence of "gouging", the P&L doesn't reflect their pricing and earnings as being high enough to support a change in the market.

 

[Bell206]

there is incentive for competitors to undercut the incumbents -- until regulatory restrictions stop them.

But if that were true then the PMA and similar industries should be flat or declining. Except they’re not. Some of those industries are actually "booming." However, the qualifier as with any product is the market in which they serve and the private Part 91 market is not one of those.

Regulatory requirements have always been a cost of doing business vs a restriction. Have been procuring parts for a very long time from many different sources and do not recall any vendor ever implying they cancelled or didn’t pursue a product due to regulatory issues. No profitable market, all the time.

There were even times when some vendors would retool for a discontinued part provided we ordered a minimum to meet their profit minimums. So I don’t know where people consistently get it’s a regulatory hinderance. That is not my or others experiences at all.

Even at the aircraft certification levels, OEMs are still certifying new aircraft for viable markets. Both Cessna and Beech have provided 2 clean, sheet aircraft in the past 5 years. No regulatory restriction holding them back to include GE with their clean sheet engine design for one of them. But you won’t see one for the ever-declining Part 91 recreational market. Simple economics.