April 18, 2024
Vista Global’s VistaJet and XO joined the rest of the industry’s major players in reporting strong, positive trends to start 2021.
Luxury charter operator VistaJet credited its growth to traditional private aviation business and leisure destinations.
Service to the British Virgin Islands has more than doubled. Traffic into Hawaii increased 81% in the first two months of 2021 compared to pre-pandemic 2020 traffic. By January 2021, traffic into Las Vegas approached pre-pandemic 2020 levels. Los Cabos arrivals increased 900% in Fall 2020 compared to the previous year. The trends continue this year, the company says.
“Safety and travel have become one in the same, and the private aviation industry experienced a sharp rise in first-time fliers over the past year, including a 29% increase in new members here at VistaJet,” says, U.S. president Leona Qi, calling the gains “still a fraction of the potential market of private jet fliers.”
She adds, “We are already seeing an influx of bookings, with demand driving over 50% of our group fleet to the U.S. Currently, our customers are expressing a heightened interest in North American destinations along the West Coast, Caribbean, and Mexico.”
Sister jet card, on-demand, and jet sharing charter broker XO is also reporting record results. Drivers were triple-digit gains in deposit memberships and shared flight revenue year-over-year.
Daw the first three months of 2021, XO tallied a 298% year-over-year increase in purchases of its deposit memberships. Shared flight revenues increased 225% year-over-year in March, with a 120% uptick for the quarter. By-the-seat flight revenues increased 39% compared to Q4 of 2020.
South Florida remains XO’s top destination for bookings from Q4 2020 through Q1 2021. It was followed by New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Boston. Between New York and South Florida, family travel is up 25% from year-over-year during the quarter. Shared flights increased 99% and a 50% increase in charter flights.
“Since its inception, XO has continued to lead the evolution of private travel and has transformed the historic, segmented private aviation industry into a powerful tech-enabled tool,” said Rajat Khurana, the chief commercial officer of XO.
He adds, “Our success is directly related to XO’s enhanced digital marketplace, its unrivaled on-demand flight accessibility, and innovative crowd-sourcing technology that offers clients the ability to browse and book flights within seconds. We’re confident that XO will continue to dominate the private jet-sharing economy, as business aviation experiences a new renaissance of growth over the next decade.”
In Q1 2021, XO reported a 47% increase in instant in-app bookings and flight searches in-app increased by 22%.
