Private jet sales and flights soar during pandemic travel confusion

Private jets can be addictive for those with enough money. Once tried, it can be hard to step onto anything else. They fly in and out, often unnoticed. Passengers can avoid waiting in line for security checks. For decades, they have carried the famous and superrich from private airfields. They are the ultimate status symbol.

But since the start of the pandemic, more passengers have gravitated to private planes big and small for other reasons — like keeping ample distance from fellow travelers; or just getting to places where commercial airlines have stopped flying.

Now, the new omicron coronavirus variant is a reminder of the dangers of global travel, as a number of countries have closed their borders to foreigners. It’s possible this will increase the use of jets by business people, and the growing number of millionaires and billionaires who have travel fever and accounts full of cash. 

Business jet-buying boom

Although rich travelers are the ones demanding seats on private jets, it is private jet charter businesses that are actually buying the jets in significant numbers.

The largest company, NetJets, already has a diverse fleet of more than 760 aircraft for six to 14 passengers — making it one of the biggest aircraft operators in the world.

Such companies offer a number of prepaid subscription programs to guarantee a certain amount of flight hours, or options to buy a share of a jet. Most also offer one-time charters or other leasing models.

Private jet users get to avoid crowded airports and overweight baggage charges

Recently, NetJet’s membership card programs have proven so popular that they are have sold out. The company is currently only adding names to a waiting list because of “today’s unprecedented flight demand,” according to its website.

This year, private jet flight hours are expected to be almost 50% higher than 2020, according to the latest Global Business Aviation Outlook put out in October by Honeywell Aerospace. That amounts to about 5% more hours than before the pandemic.

And not just more hours are being logged. After a 2020 when deliveries fell, once again more jets are being sold. Based on industry insights and surveys, the Honeywell report also expects a big shopping spree, with around 7,400 new business jets valued at a total of $238 billion (€211 billion) to be delivered over the next 10 years.

NetJets put in an October order for up to 100 six-seat Embraer Phenom 300s, one of NetJets most-requested planes. That comes on top of the 100 it already owns. In total, the company is investing around $2.5 billion in new aircraft, to be delivered between now and the end of 2022, the company confirmed.

Besides Embraer, other manufacturers such as Cessna, Gulfstream, Bombardier and Dassault Falcon also plan to step up production of light and medium-size jets.

Private jets come in all sizes from just a few seats to luxury flying palaces

Tight jet market

Around 90% of business jet operators reported that their purchase plans had not been negatively impacted by the ongoing pandemic. Hardly any order cancellations have been booked. Other industry analysts like JETNET iQ can imagine even higher sales growth in the near future.

As in the past, North America will continue to play an outsized role in the industry. Honeywell predicts that around 63% of worldwide demand for new business jets will come from operators there over the next five years. Europe is expcted to account for 16%, and the Asia Pacific region for around 12%.

In another sign of a tight market, business jet operators are also purchasing more used aircraft. This reflects how manufactures were not prepared for the higher demand, driving up prices on a shrinking inventory of used planes.

Honeywell found that global operators expected to replace or expand 28% of their fleets with used jets over the next five years. Overall, 65% of respondents expect to operate their business jets more in the coming year.

There really is no limit to what customers can spend on a customized private jet

Commercial woes vs. private growth

This is all in sharp contrast to commercial aviation’s slow recovery, which is much more sensitive to lockdowns, travel bans and low passenger numbers.

While short-haul and regional travel, particularly in China and the US, is recovering, “long-haul travel continues to recover slowly, though the opening of the US to vaccinated travelers last month will drive substantial demand,” Karthik Venkataraman, leader of the Americas Airlines logistics and transportation sector for management consultancy Bain Company told DW.

Though he expects 2022 to bring steady recovery, uncertainty fills the air. “We believe fundamentally that people want to travel, but it will likely be 2025 or beyond before we return to 2019 levels, and airlines will need to remain responsive to demand and supply trends,” he concluded.

Additionally, the future could be disrupted by less business class travel, high fuel prices, a desire to fly green or increased pressure to avoid flying all together. 

Often sleek with little markings, private jets wiz in and out of the world’s airfields

Nina Wittkamp, a partner at consultancy McKinsey in Munich, is also cautious, and believes commercial air travel will recover in 2023 and 2024. “Demand for leisure and travel involving visiting friends and family is expected to return in 2023, while business lags behind leisure,” she told DW. “Leisure travel is recovering much faster due to pent-up demand.”

For customers, she sees the possibility of ticket price increases. For commercial jet makers, she expects that “many aircraft markets may be oversupplied for some time as airlines have been restructuring their fleets.” 

Yet while the commercial end of the aviation business slowly sputters on, the private jet sector seems to have caught a real tailwind, with increased traffic and longer waits for business jets.

In the end, though, private business jet travel is for the very few. For the millions of other travelers stuck at crowded airports, having to wait a bit longer for that perfect charter jet would be a nice problem to have.

• 5 decades of flying high: Boeing 747

  A wide-body wonder

  Though its maiden flight was on February 9, 1969, the Boeing 747 actually entered commercial service nearly a year later with a Pan Am flight from New York to London. This first flight was originally scheduled for the 21st, but was delayed due to mechanical problems. With a nearly seven-hour delay — and replacement plane — history was made when on January 22, 1970 the 747 took off at 1:52 a.m.

• 5 decades of flying high: Boeing 747

  A fabulous interior

  The first Boeing “jumbo jet” had a list price of $23 million according to contemporary reports. It was a true American invention and was assembled just outside Seattle in Everett, Washington, had 11 doors and room for up to 362 passengers. But it was the amazing roomy interiors with high ceilings that captured the imagination of travelers from around the world and made it so special.

• 5 decades of flying high: Boeing 747

  Glamour in the skies

  Within a month of its first flight, Pan Am added more flights connecting San Francisco, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Hong Kong. Soon other international airlines rolled out their own 747s. By June 1970, Boeing had orders for nearly 200 of the aircraft. The comfortable planes attracted the rich and famous. Here Gloria Swanson is seen in the 1974 disaster film “Airport 1975” also staring Charlton Heston.

• 5 decades of flying high: Boeing 747

  Designing for the blue beyond

  At the time not everyone was sold on the idea. Many feared there was no market for such a large plane and that it would be impossible to sell so many tickets to fill all the seats. Others worried that airports were unfit to handle the increased number of passengers all at once; how could so much luggage be loaded and unloaded? Still Joseph Sutter, head of the 747 design team, stuck to his plans.

• 5 decades of flying high: Boeing 747

  Powered by four turbofans

  To start the “second jet age” the new 747s needed to be big, but also powerful. Its four engines were not made by Boeing but by Pratt Whitney, a subsidiary of United Aircraft Corporation. They were the most powerful jet engines ever produced up until that time and generated an amazing 46,000 pounds of thrust to propel it 600 miles an hour — just what was needed for long transatlantic flights.

• 5 decades of flying high: Boeing 747

  Is bigger always better?

  At first most airports were not prepared for such a massive jet, one that was well over twice the size of the Boeing 707. Runways needed to be lengthened and reinforced for the plane’s 350 tons. Others needed to invest millions in new, bigger check-in areas, more waiting room and baggage capacity. One consequence of bigger planes was the entrenchment of the hub-and-spoke model for airlines.

• 5 decades of flying high: Boeing 747

  The most famous 747

  Air Force One, the American president’s wings, is the most famous 747 to ever take off. In reality two 747-200s, the aircraft is only called AFO when the president steps onboard. Delivered in 1990, the planes are specially equipped and can be used as a flying White House. Though their paintjob is instantly recognizable, they are soon to be replaced with new 747-8s at a cost of over $3 billion.

• 5 decades of flying high: Boeing 747

  An icon through and through

  Over the years the plane has gone through updates. Gone are the bars and many of the other luxuries that once filled parts of the jet like grand pianos. Versions were lengthened and seats were reconfigured. The 747-400 can squeeze in 524 passengers. Still airlines looked elsewhere. In the US Delta was the last company to fly the passenger giants and even they retired the last one in December 2017.

• 5 decades of flying high: Boeing 747

  A slow decline

  In other parts of the world, the 747 is still in commercial service. British Airways has the largest fleet in operation. Yet slowly but surely after years of setting passenger records, the original jumbo jet also known as the “Queen of the Skies,” has continued to fall out of favor compared with newer, more fuel efficient planes. In the last decade orders have been low even for cargo versions.

• 5 decades of flying high: Boeing 747

  Pan Am lives on in Berlin

  In 2019, no new 747s were ordered at all, though seven were still delivered. In all, over 1,550 have been made in the past five decades. Nonetheless, the heyday of the second jet age and Pan Am’s double-deck glamour days is still alive at the Pan Am Lounge in Berlin. Still decorated in its classic 1970s style, today it’s a private club full of nostalgia and can be rented out as a party location.

  Author: Timothy Rooks

Edited by: Hardy Graupner

Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/private-jet-sales-and-flights-soar-during-pandemic-travel-confusion/a-59992697?maca=en-rss-en-bus-2091-xml-atom