As the global Covid pandemic recedes further into the past, business aviation traffic in Southeast Asia has seen a strong rebound. In Singapore, business aircraft departures from Changi and Seletar airports last year rose to nearly 28 percent above 2019 levels, according to industry data tracker WingX Advance.
“Traveling habits have returned to pre-Covid levels with demands in business aviation traffic continuing to rise,” explained Faizal Khan, Jet Aviation’s director of FBO operations in Singapore. “This is also aided by Singapore’s strategic role and location in the Asia-Pacific region.”
Of the two airports in the city-state, Seletar clearly dominates business and private aviation traffic. Based on WingX data, the dedicated general aviation airport received 93 percent of the business aviation traffic heading to Singapore in 2023.
The discrepancy led another major business aviation ground service provider Signature Aviation to recently discontinue its flight representation at Changi. While the company did not maintain a physical office there, it would station employees at Changi to accommodate any of its customers who flew into the island's main commercial airport.
“It was a man-in-a-van literally because you have to use the airport infrastructure,” explained Signature Aviation CEO Tony Lefebvre, adding that employees would meet the arriving passengers on the ramp and take them through customs and help them with any requests on departure. “I’ve flown into the market so I appreciate why customers choose Seletar over Changi,” he told AIN. “It’s closer to the city as well so it just makes sense.”
Signature maintains a partnership with one of the handlers at Seletar to whom it can refer customers and also retains a stake in Hong Kong Business Aviation Center (HKBAC), the lone FBO at Hong Kong International Airport. Lefebvre raised the possibility of an FBO at Seletar joining the company’s 200-plus global network. “I’d say it’s an area that we are interested in, and for the right opportunity we would pursue it,” he said.
For Southeast Asia in general, “Infrastructure challenges persist, especially as airports in the region weren’t originally designed for business aviation,” explained Yvonne Chan, Universal Weather and Aviation’s regional director for the region. “This includes limited facilities and bigger jets, leading to parking constraints.”
Gulfstream and Bombardier See Large Cabin Jet Growth
Indeed, large cabin jets dominate the aircraft types used in the area. “The performance capabilities Gulfstream introduced with the G650 have proven to be ideal for customers in the Southeast Asia and APAC region as interest continues to grow,” said Michael Swift, the airframer’s group v-p of sales for EMEA and APAC. “We are now seeing heightened demand for our flagship G700 and the ultra-long-range G800 as the high speeds and long ranges these aircraft provide are desirable for operators in the region wanting to travel nonstop to Europe and other parts of the world.”
That also holds true for its Canadian rival, Bombardier. “We continue to see strong interest in our aircraft from India, Australia, and Southeast Asia and currently have Global 7500 aircraft based throughout the [APAC] region in Japan, Australia, India, Greater China, Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia,” noted Matthew Nicholls, the Montreal-based manufacturer’s senior advisor of communications and public affairs.
“A lot of the [flight] stage length is related to that as well,” noted Lefebvre. “There is a bit of mid-cabin there but not a lot of small cabins,” he said, adding that most of the GA infrastructure under construction in the region will support more large cabin jets.
Only two counters serve customs, immigration, and quarantine facilities at Seletar, posing a challenge that stands to become more acute with expected further demand increases.
“There’s a buzz with new entrants in the aircraft ownership and charter market, and now there’s talk about new air taxi businesses with medium-range aircraft,” said Chan. “So the competition in the charter business is heating up—great news for customers and industry players.”
With business aviation on the upswing, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) is trying to help owners and operators. Chan noted that the issuance of an operations permit takes time due to the authority's surveillance program for foreign operators, which follows a risk-based methodology to assess foreign carriers and business jets.
The evaluation considers factors such as the safety oversight capability of the state of the operator, the state of registry, the operational capability of the carrier, and the safety records of the specific aircraft and aircraft type. “We understand and support the CAAS decision to review the safety records of operators and aircraft,” Chan said.
Most of the traffic heading into Singapore originates from the ASEAN region, notably Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia. Rising traffic from those areas has offset the continuing malaise seen in mainland China, which has not yet experienced the same rebound.
Lefebvre—who sits on HKBAC’s board of directors through Signature’s ownership stake, offered a perspective from the Hong Kong market. “Asia, certainly China, was still in that recovery mode and so we are starting to see the benefits of them coming off the various restrictions that were there,” he told AIN. “It’s been a good 12 months and it’s been trending not back to fully, but it’s certainly trending directionally the right way.”
Sustainable aviation fuel is available at Seletar through the Jet Aviation FBO, which has maintained supplies since 2022. “We are also partnering to offer custom blends of SAF, enabling customers to choose a percentage blend to meet their specific requirements,” said Faizal Khan, the company’s director of Singapore FBO operations. Signature Aviation supplies SAF to the Bombardier company-owned service center at Seletar under a deal struck between the two companies in 2021. Signature also expects to offer SAF credits in Hong Kong through book-and-claim by the end of the year.