Year-over-year business aviation flight activity for North America dropped 4.2 percent last month, according to Argus International’s TraqPak review. However, this was slightly better than the 4.5 percent drop that Argus had forecasted.
European flying declined 11.9 percent, Argus said—“its usual trend of further slowing during September…due to the transition from summer flying.” In Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America, “Overall activity remained positive, finishing up 13.6 percent year-over-year.”
For North America, the best year-over-year performance was for the fractional category, which was up 9.2 percent. Part 91 midsize jet activity fell 8.4 percent, while Part 135 dropped 4.1 percent “thanks to sluggish activity in turboprops and small-cabin aircraft.”
In terms of aircraft categories in North America, large-cabin jets posted the best numbers year-over-year, down 0.2 percent, with midsize jets down 3 percent and light jets down 4.6 percent.
"Overall, September went about as we expected, which is neither good nor bad,” said Argus senior v-p, market intelligence Travis Kuhn. “It's encouraging that the daily flight average increased from August to September, but the industry is still off 4.5 percent for the month. We will watch Q4 closely to evaluate the health of our industry from an activity standpoint. We expect activity to be positive for the quarter, which would certainly be an encouraging trend.”