Following a surprising 0.5% increase in private jet flying in October, ARGUS Traqpak expects the positive momentum to continue.
October private jet activity in North America was up 0.5% year-over-year.
ARGUS TraqPak had forecast a decline of 2.7%.
“October flight activity definitely gave us a surprise,” says ARGUS Senior Vice President Travis Kuhn.
Kuhn adds, “We expected North America to record around 300,000 flights, but it exceeded our expectations and managed to produce a year-over-year gain in activity.”
Why the increase?
“The two big stories in the activity report are the positive month for Part 135 (ad hoc charter and jet card) activity, and, on the other side, the declines in Part 91 and Part 135 large cabin activity. These are certainly areas that we will continue to monitor as we move forward,” Kuhn tells Private Jet Card Comparisons.
Kuhn expects a 1.1% increase in November.
Looking back to October, light jets saw a 2.5% year-over-year increase, followed by midsize jets, up 2.0%, and turboprops, up 1.8%.
Large cabin jets were the only category in the red, down 8.4%.
Part 135 flying mirrored the overall market, up 0.2% overall, with only large jets seeing a decline, down 13.1%.
Midsize charter jets were up 4.3%, turboprops gained 2.9%, and light jets were up 1.5%.
Fractional operators again were the shiny star, up 8.4%.
Large cabin flying was up 13.2%, followed by light jets, up 11.5%, midsize aircraft with a 7.0% gain, and 2.3% up for turboprops.
NetJets reported its busiest day ever for U.S. flying was on Oct. 27.
Part 91—Flights for the jet owner were down 2.3%, with large cabin flights leading the dip, down 8.5%.