Global business aircraft flight activity for the primary two months of 2024 was down about 3 percent compared with the identical period in 2023, based on data released today by WingX. The information analytics company’s CEO, Richard Koe, told attendees on the annual British Business & General Aviation Association conference that Europe is mostly lagging behind North America because the continent’s principal economies endure weak growth and continued fallout from Russia’s war with Ukraine.
During 2023, when Koe described industry activity as “simmering” after the exceptional post-Covid performance in 2022, WingX recorded stronger traffic growth rates in Asia (up 28 percent), Africa (up 26 percent), and Latin America (up 16 percent). Nevertheless, these regions collectively still account for lower than 10 percent of worldwide activity.
While traffic levels declined last yr in Europe (down 7 percent) and North America (down 4 percent), Koe indicated that the latter region appears to have stronger prospects for 2024. “Europe has now fallen back to 2019 levels of activity and has not sustained the step change seen elsewhere after the pandemic,” he commented.
Within the two years since Russia invaded Ukraine, WingX has recorded a 16 percent decline in activity directly attributable to the implications of economic sanctions against individuals and institutions related to the Putin administration. Koe noted that significant numbers of business jets formerly registered in Russia have migrated to Turkey and the Middle East while adding that it is tough to trace how ownership of those aircraft might need modified in the method.
In Europe, WingX data shows that aircraft management operations now account for the most important portion of flight activity. The following largest segment is corporate flight departments, although these are declining in scale, while fractional ownership activity is rising on a continent that continues to see a number of seasonal fluctuation in demand.
Over the past 4 years, Koe and his team have observed business aviation filling gaps in Europe’s transportation network that had been opened up by the closure of regional airline service. He told conference attendees that the variety of regional routes across the continent has declined from greater than 2,500 in 2019 to around 1,240 in 2023.
In Koe’s view, scheduled airlines are actually focusing more on longer sectors and bypassing smaller airports. While the price of personal aircraft flights will limit the extent to which the industry can provide alternatives, he concluded that in-development electric and hybrid-electric aircraft offering regional air mobility options could have an effect in the longer term.