Business aircraft flight activity in North America logged its highest year-over-year (YOY) gain of 2025 thus far in August, up by 4.4% as global activity increased overall by 3.7%, according to Argus International’s latest TraqPak report. Flight activity in Europe, meanwhile, marked its fourth positive month in a row, up by 1.9%.
"August was definitely a pleasant surprise for us,” said Travis Kuhn, Argus senior v-p of software. “We expected activity to gain, but demand outpaced our forecast yet again, and that's a problem we'll gladly accept. Positive Part 91 activity continues to contribute to the 2025 uptick in activity, coupled with a stable Part 135 market and a robust fractional market. Globally speaking, Europe finished out a positive summer after a few years of consistent declines."
Argus predicts the YOY increase will continue in September at a more muted pace of 2.1% in North America and a slightly heated clip in Europe at 2.9%.
Activity in North America was expected to increase by 2.0% in August, Argus noted. The continued strengthening comes as fractional operations continued to surge, with a 12.5% YOY gain. Part 135 operators flew 3.7% more YOY in August and Part 91 by 1.7%.
Midsize jet utilization saw the largest increase in the month of 5.4% more activity, but the fellow jet categories of small and large cabins were closely on the heels, up 5.3% and 5.2%, respectively. Turboprop activity increased by 2.2% in August. Large-cabin fractional operations posted the single largest improvement of 24.7%.
In Europe, large-cabin-jet activity took a significant jump upward YOY in August, by 6.9%, while small-cabin activity increased by 1.1% and midsize jets by 0.6%. These offset the 2.6% decline in turboprop flights.
As for the rest of the world, overall activity improved by 2.5%, with small-cabin flights surged by18.8%, followed by large cabin activity at 8.5% and midsize at 8%. Similar to the pattern in Europe, turboprop operations were on the decline in other parts of the world, with activity dropping by 5.6%.