Global business aircraft activity ticked up by 2 percent last month thanks to the extra leap day. The year-over-year improvement last month also stemmed the declines seen in the past few months.
In North America, activity was up 2.5 percent year-over-year (YOY) in February. But in Europe, activity slowed by 5.7 percent, though that was a slight improvement from the 7.9 percent YOY drop reported for January. However, Argus expects business aircraft activity to return to the negative this month in North America, forecasting a 2.7 percent dip, and further declining in Europe by 6.9 percent YOY.
Without the extra day in February, North American operations would have been down by 1.7 percent YOY. Fractional operations continued to surge, up 19.1 percent over February 2023, and Part 91 activity was up 2.2 percent. However, the slide in Part 135 operations persisted last month, falling 4 percent with turboprop, light jet, and large-cabin jet flights all down in this category.
But given the strength of fractional operations and slight improvement in Part 91 flying, operations were on the plus side for all aircraft categories. Midsize jet operations increased the most, with a 4.9 percent year-over-year improvement, followed by light jets at 2.4 percent; large-cabin jets, up 1 percent; and turboprops, up 0.7 percent.
In Europe last month, turboprop operations fell 15.9 percent YOY, followed by large-cabin jets, -6.1 percent, and light jets, -2.9 percent. A bright spot was a 5.1 percent improvement in midsize jet activity in the region.
Other regions of the world combined for a 9.1 percent improvement in February.
"After several months of declines we finally got our activity increase, courtesy of leap day,” noted Travis Kuhn, senior v-p of software for Argus. As for this month, March is usually one of the strongest months of the year, he added. “We'll be expecting a slight yearly decline but still estimate to record around 290,000 flights during the month."