Private jet flights have been a symbol of the rich and the mighty, but however the demand of these flights fell by 15% in the first half of the year against their peak in 2022.
Paris Summer Olympics came a ray hope for these ultra-luxury flights with a record 713 private jet flights to Paris the last week of July, the private jet industry continues to lose altitude this travel season.
It may be interesting to note that Private jet charter flights dropped to 610,000 in the first half of the year, down from 645,000 last year and 716,000 in 2022, according to data from Argus International.
The two-year decline highlights the ongoing correction in the world of private aviation, as the surge of new jet card members and charter fliers who started traveling private for the first time during Covid pulls back. Even ultra-wealthy travelers are showing signs of spending fatigue.
The industry is still ahead of 2019 levels, and experts say if you take out the aberrational spike in 2021 and 2022, business has been rising along its usual growth path. Yet the boom times of the post-Covid era created a wave of euphoria in the industry, ushering in a burst of IPOs and startups, and a mad scramble for jets and pilots. Now, many say, all that expansion is setting the stage for a shakeout.
Giving us the UAE perspective was Afi Ahmed, the owner of Smart Travels, a travel operator based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the man behind recently launched Air Kerala who enthused, “UAE was one the countries to ease Covid restrictions much earlier than rest of the world. The demand was way above the number of charter flights allowed to operate under the Air bubble. Some of the Charter operators tried profiting from the demand. This is when SMART TRAVEL, based in UAE took up the initiative to arrange charter flights at fixed, economical rates to expats who could not afford high costs. Smart Travel operated close to 50 charter flights, gaining high goodwill from expats in UAE.”
Going on further Ahmed explained, “ This period was the golden period for charter flights across the globe. Which went on for close to 2 years after the covid. Propelled by post pandemic “Revenge Tourism” the airline companies across the globe were struggling to meet the demand. After months of non-operation, the airline industry took time to get back on track. The technical clearances of equipment, lease agreements, pilots and crew rostering, security clearances caused lot of delay for commercial flights worldwide to put their inventory to pre-covid levels.
And even when commercial flights started operating to capacity, the fares were very high considering the “Revenge Tourism” demand. It still made Charter flights thrive as an alternate option to travelers, especially the high net worth. However, as the airline covered up on the inventory, with easing “Revenge Tourism” the demand for travel started going down. The fares of Air tickets started cooling as commercial flights started filling the capacities across the world. Which in turn impacted the Charter flight demand.”
“The ease of cancelling your trip, date changes, getting refunds on unutilized tickets makes it easier to choose commercial flights, even for high-net-worth travelers, using charter flights post Covid. Some of the smaller charter operators may soon face tough decisions, as fleets sit idle and demand falls,” Ahmed aptly concludes.
