Data through April 2022 shows continuing record levels of business aviation flights. SherpaReport looked at data from ARGUS, FlightAware and Radarbox.
According to ARGUS, the North American market booked the strongest April on record to finish up 16.7% compared to April 2021. Over 313,000 flights were recorded during the month of April but this was down 2.7% from March this year.
And the numbers from Radarbox, in the graph below, show how much higher the 2022 flight numbers are (the pale green shaded area), compared to the lines for 2019, 2020 (with its large initial covid dip in Mar/Apr/May) and 2021.
Earlier in April, FlightAware noted that average flights per day, for the week of Apr 10 - Apr 17, were up 10.6% compared to 2021, up over 300% compared to the very low Covid hit levels in 2020 and up 14.5% compared to pre-covid levels in 2019.
Looking at the flights by aircraft type, ARGUS notes that the large cabin and mid-size saw the highest growth in North America up over 30% and 20% respectively compared to April 2021. This was partly because the smaller aircraft recovered first last year, as people started to do shorter trips, but now as more of the world opens up, people are using the bigger planes to accomplish longer missions.
The ARGUS TRAQPak numbers also show enormous growth in Europe, with European flight activity up 74.8% from April 2021, and over 76,000 business aviation flights recorded across the continent during the month. This high growth also reflects the effects of Covid, as the pandemic restricted a lot of international travel a year ago, but these restrictions have eased significantly, even with the newer effects of war in Ukraine.