January Bizav Ops Still Grow Despite Winter Storm

Global business aircraft flight activity continued to strengthen in January, finishing the month up by 2.4% year over year (YOY) with operations increasing by 1.3% in North America and by 0.5% in Europe, aviation researcher and safety specialist Argus International reported yesterday. Further, Argus anticipates this growth to continue this month, projecting a 1.3% YOY increase in North America and 4.3% jump in Europe.

The activity in North America was actually muted by the winter weather in January. Citing its TraqPak data, Argus noted that flights were up by 6.5% from January 1 to 22 YOY but then declined by 10.9% during the rest of the month following the major winter storm that covered a large swath of the U.S. and the subsequent extreme cold.

As a result, the only operational category to finish on the upside was fractional in January, increasing by 10.3% YOY. Part 91 activity finished down by 0.8% and Part 135 by 0.9% YOY in January.

By aircraft categories, midsize-cabin aircraft activity improved by 2.2% in January, followed by light jets at a 2.1% increase and turboprops at 0.2% on the plus side. Large jets flew 21 fewer flights, but operations were statistically flat. The greatest gain of the month came with fractional turboprops, up 17.3% YOY, while large-cabin Part 135 activity declined the most, down 5.5%.

In Europe, business aircraft activity has now been up for nine months in a row. However, turboprop activity dropped by 8.2% YOY in January, and small-cabin operators similarly declined by 2.7%. On the positive side, large-cabin jet activity increased by 8% and midsize cabins by 3.2% YOY in January.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the regions, all categories of aircraft saw increased activity, but it is the turboprops and small cabins leading the gains (by 9.7% and 16.7%, respectively). This was followed by midsize cabins at 6.3% and large cabins at 1.5% YOY in January.

“Overall activity for January looked good to start the year. We saw some weather impacts across North America as activity…We don’t see that as a negative moving forward and still see the indicators looking strong for 2026,” said Travis Kuhn, senior v-p of software for Argus.