NetJets is the top banana in the West: WingX

In their weekly report we publish, WingX typically highlights some interesting slice of the market.

This week’s report took a look at California and NetJets.

Week 49 was hectic for private flights departing from the Golden State.

The 400-flight gain on a week-to-week basis represented a 14% spike.

WingX Managing Director Richard Koe noted, “The growth is all coming from Part 135 and 91K activity, up 20% in California.”

According to its data, “NetJets enjoyed an 18% market share of business jet activity out of California, flying almost 600 more departures than the second busiest operator, Flexjet.”

Of course, NetJets is the biggest private jet operator in the world.

Busiest Private Jet Routes

NetJets had 22% of private jet flights between San Francisco and New York.

There was a significant rise in bizjet activity between Los Angeles and San Francisco, per WingX

And here were the busiest private jet routes with California departure points last week.

Busiest Private Jet Routes

Oh, and as to the picture of those people in front of an airplane holding bananas.

That would be Hughes Airwest, which marketed itself as the “Top Banana in the West.”

It was initially called Air West before Howard Hughes bought it and renamed it Hughes Airwest.

Air West was a merger of Pacific Air Lines, Bonanza Air Lines, and West Coast Airlines.

The top banana in the west was bought in 1980 by Republic Airways and then purchased by Northwest Airlines.

Delta Air Lines later bought Northwest.

And you thought there was too much M&A in business aviation.

If you like a good TV ad jingle, here are links to two of Hughes Airwest’s TV commercials from the period.