Down here at the little end of GA, doing training and private hire, the PPL training market has remained about the same, but the hire market is definately down, especially those who come from overseas for a self-fly holiday.
It's always been competitive, but margins are getting smaller all the time, the gap in operating costs between those who are doing things by the book and those who are cheating on the GST, cheating their staff out of pay, super and compo is getting wider all the time. I guess a lot of them would never survive if they didn't cheat, and of course the tax office doesn't have the resources to do much about it.
Not helped by some organisations starting price wars and operating below cost to grab what's left of the private hire market.
As for buying new aircraft, do the sums of how many hours they would have to do to meet the finance payments, it's impossible, unless everyone tripled their rates! I know from experience that on the whole people aren't prepared to pay more for a new aircraft than an older equivalent one. Of course about 1/3 of the cost of a new aircraft is the manufacturers liability insurance against some twit flying into the side of a hill and suing them later on. Nothing any of us can do about that.
So what does the future hold? I reckon in ten years time I'll still be operating the same aircraft, the oldest 1967, the youngest 1979, with the exeption of one 1998 model which is no better than the older ones apart from the radio stack. I can see a few operators getting into dire straits unlessthey have another source of income. It's sad. Why? GST, Location Specific Charging, privatisation of airports, big fuel price hikes...? and lots of media attention on every mishap, crumpled aeroplanes on the news don't help us at all.
Aus is still one of the cheapest places to learn to fly and hire an aeroplane, perhaps only the USA and RSA can beat us on that; but none of us can survive unless the below cost people disappear and we can set more realistic prices. Many punters think that $110 an hour for a C172/PA28 is the going rate and anyone who charges more is "greedy"
It's a depressing time, but by no means the end of the road yet!