The EBACE exhibition that just ended in Geneva has confirmed it: business aviation is in full swing. In 2006, manufacturers delivered 885 planes of all types.
Over the next ten years, nearly 10,000 units should come in to complement the fleet. According to Eurocontrol, the organization that takes care of security in the skies, business aviation should even double by 2025, in part thanks to strong demand coming from Eastern countries and Russia.
“In the next two years, we expect Russia to become one of our key markets in Europe, behind the UK, Switzerland and France,” says NetJets Europe Sales Vice President, Vasily Pasetchnik eagerly.
We’re talking about a particularly interesting market, seeing as our Russian clients travel more hours, and more frequently, than the British on average.” A telling sign is that the company has 100 clients in the country today, comparing to barely 30 in 2005. Most of them are top managers in big companies or rich entrepreneurs.
“Russia is becoming more international,” Vasily Pasetchnik adds. “The busi- ness industry is booming as businesses invest and list abroad and we expect to see this region grow and become a major player in facilitating European business.
We expect our company to become an integral business tool in achieving this.” Long left to the United States, the sector is now growing on an international scale.
It’s happily surfing the current boom and should, according to numerous observers, break new records this year, notably thanks to the development of VLJs (very light jets), which will make prices drop. Cost today is already in the vicinity of 5,000 Euros an hour. As a general rule, private aviation companies do not rent out seats but rather entire planes.
Consequently, the number of passengers makes no difference to airfare, which depends rather on the type of airplane and the destination.
An indispensable tool The business sector uses aviation more and more as an indispensable tool for work. It allows getting around annoyances and the frequent delays that plague commercial aviation: “Today private aviation is less a luxury than a must for efficiency, for quality of service and time saving,” says Franck Madignier, President and CEO of TAG Aviation Europe. Our clients call on our services first of all to get to their destination on time and in good shape. We often tell certain clients who try to compare private airplanes to yachts that no one has ever wanted to spend a whole weekend in their air plane.” Private aviation saves time but also money. It’s not uncommon for clients to fly with their lawyers, to optimize their schedule and save on honorariums.
“It’s sometimes difficult to differentiate between a business clientele and one of leisure, Madignier points out. Many of our trips combine both. That changes nothing for us: we offer the same services either way.
Whether for business or pleasure, every one of our flights is tailor-made.” One barrier still stands in the way of robust development in this sector, however, despite the fact that people’s ideas about private aviation have much evolved in recent years, notably in Europe. And that is limited access to airports, which are monopolized by commercial flights. Geneva airport, for instance, organizes 40 movements per hour, only three of which are allocated to small aircrafts. It’s undoubtedly on this that private aviation’s future will hinge in coming years.
