Bradley Perrett and John Morris | Aviation Week & Space Technology

It is a case of Southeast Asia to the rescue. As demand for business jets slumped last year in China, the countries to the south stepped up. The overall Asia-Pacific fleet has barely grown, though trade in secondhand aircraft looks brisk. Notably, quite a few business jets have left China.

The Chinese industry can at least look forward to the easing of its worst operational restriction next year, with the opening of a ground facility at the new airport at Daxing by state-owned Capital Jet.

Southeast Asian countries collectively added a net 14 aircraft to their fleets in 2018, a 6% increase, according to a comprehensive annual report compiled by Hong Kong consultancy Asian Sky Group. Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan—counted together as Greater China—stagnated. Far from soaking up ever larger numbers of personal aircraft, as manufacturers once expected, Greater China’s fleet shrank by...

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