Page 5 - March 2015 Volume 9, Number 3

OVING?
by Jim Becker
While all King Airs are not created equal, this leads to the creation of many different market types. This is seen not only in the model variation – C90, B200, B300, etc., but within each model, there can be half a dozen markets due to variances on what came standard on the airplane during given model years. All of these differences tend to cloud the market and make it very difficult for King Air owners to truly understand the value of their aircraft.
Because there are so many market types, in this article, we are going to focus on only the variants that are still in production – the King Air C90, B200, and 350. We also will not focus on after-market modifications as these can greatly affect the value of the aircraft.
King Air C90
For this discussion, I am going to review the King Air C90B through the GTx. When looking at the C90, there are several defining points where the market views a production change significant enough to affect value beyond an adjustment for the model year. For example, the King Air C90B was pretty uniform for its entire production run. All but a handful of 1992 models had Collins EFIS-84, and all had Pratt & Whitney PT6A-21 engines. For the most part, the C90B market is fairly homogenous. It is moving in the same direction with little difference at either end. Produced in 2006 and 2007, the King Air C90GT was an improvement over the C90B as the engines were upgraded to Pratt & Whitley PT6A-135 models. This provided a nearly 30-knot increase in airspeed, and created a distinct market segment within the 90 series. In 2008, Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21 avionics were added and the C90GT was rebranded as the C90GTi. This further segmented the C90 market and created a large value difference between a 2007 and a 2008 model. The final change to the C90 market came in 2010 with another rebranding. Winglets were added and the newest C90 was christened as the C90GTx.
The C90 market is the most sluggish of the King Airs. For the C90B, prices declined about nine percent in 2014. The selling prices for an average aircraft are between $900,000 and $1,400,000. The average number of days on the market in 2014 for
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 3
MARCH 2015
PHOTO CREDIT: DAN MOORE VMG LLC
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