Global business aircraft flight activity for the first two months of 2024 was down about 3 percent compared with the same period in 2023, according to data released today by WingX. The data analytics company’s CEO, Richard Koe, told attendees at the annual British Business & General Aviation Association conference that Europe is generally lagging behind North America as the continent's main 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). However, these regions collectively still account for less than 10 percent of global activity.
While traffic levels declined last year 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.
In the two years since Russia invaded Ukraine, WingX has recorded a 16 percent decline in activity directly attributable to the consequences of economic sanctions against individuals and institutions associated with 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 hard to track how ownership of these aircraft might have changed in the process.
In Europe, WingX data shows that aircraft management operations now account for the largest portion of flight activity. The next 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 lot of seasonal fluctuation in demand.
Over the past four 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 number of regional routes across the continent has declined from more than 2,500 in 2019 to around 1,240 in 2023.
In Koe’s view, scheduled airlines are now focusing more on longer sectors and bypassing smaller airports. While the cost of private 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 impact in the future.