As the Covid pandemic begins to fade, more new customers have been drawn to private aviation, particularly charter. In an EBACE Connect panel on Tuesday, experts in the field examined what they believe are some of the issues facing the industry.
Ian Moore—chief commercial officer of VistaJet, whose parent company Vista Global purchased XOJet Aviation in 2018—sees an opportunity for light business jet/short-haul flights as commercial airlines have contracted their routes. “We feel that area and that market is something that the XO brand can go after in a combination of working with the operators that already have light jets in that market but also adding light jets ourselves.”
He ties the growth that the market has experienced over the past year to clients who have tried private aviation for the first time. “It's all of our jobs to keep them in the industry," Moore said.
Bernhard Fragner, CEO of Austria-based light jet operator GlobeAir, spoke about factors concerning “one-click” charter pricing, noting that the European market is very supply-driven. He suggested the establishment of a centralized industry inventory database. “Our pricing varies roughly 20 percent up and down depending on the demand,” he said, adding that variables such as crew availability, which is limited by duty times, must also be considered, in addition to aircraft costs. “This is a real-time pricing factor," he added.