Story ID: 431
Asian Charter Market Expands Rapidly
By: Ian Sheppard
Caption: Charter requests in China have surged, outstripping GDP growth which has come in at 6.8%.
Word Count: 274
Sweden’s Avinode charter information specialist (Booth H1105) says the market in Asia is “expanding rapidly” based on the increasing number of bookings in the region.

Oliver King, CEO of the Avinode Group, said: “Such positive growth reflects the accelerating demand for business aviation across the globe, as well as the consolidation of Asia’s position in the charter market.”

For example, it reported that “requests for arrivals into Asian airports made through Avinode rose by 43% for the period April 2017 to March 2018 compared to the same period in 2016-17–from 78,269 to 111,964.”

Avinode said the most significant increase in requests were from Russia and the U.S. Requests for arrivals from the U.S. “surged” 72.4% and from Russia 41.4%, and requests for departures from Asia, made through Avinode’s system, increased by 53%. International departures from Asia to the U.S. and Russia increased by 80% and 84.5%.

On the Chinese domestic front the country experienced “the greatest growth…for arrivals, China overtook India to become the second most popular destination in Asia, with requests up 70.6%”–Thailand retained the number one spot and requests increased 64.6%. For domestic departures Chinese airports saw requests “more than doubling,” from 2,286 to 4,765.

It isn’t clear whether the growth was partly due to a shift away from aircraft ownership and aircraft owners taking advantage of the strong dollar to dispose of assets into the U.S. market. Globally there is a trend, especially among the younger generation, towards charter and other forms of usage, rather than aircraft ownership–as highlighted by the recent work of Wealth-X (reported in ABACE Convention News, April 17, 2018).