Predicting that business aviation operations in North America this year will nearly match those in 2022, Argus International said the industry seems to have rightsized to handle demand after a tumultuous three years that brought “the highest of highs” in October 2021, the lowest month recorded in April 2020, “and everything in between.”
In its recently released 2022 Annual Business Aviation Review, Argus forecast that operations this year will come in 1 percent below those of last year. While slightly down, this would be 14.4 percent above pre-pandemic levels of 2019, Argus noted.
Comparing anticipated operations in 2023 with what occurred in 2022, Argus expects an uneven first half with operations down in most months and improvement in the latter half with operations slightly ahead in most months.
January marked a 1.3 percent increase, but Argus said this likely will be followed by four straight months of declines with April slipping the most, down 7.2 percent. June may see a 0.1 percent gain, but activity will be uneven until the last three months of the year, which will witness slight growth.
The end result will be fairly close to 2022 in total, a relatively stable state of affairs given the challenges the industry has faced, including early evaporation of demand followed by record demand during the pandemic, workforce struggles, supply-chain issues, and uncertainty regarding corporate travel and international restrictions.
Questions linger about whether new business aviation travelers will remain or return to the airlines. And a question has emerged about a potential global recession.
“The segments that will need to be watched closely over the next 12 months will be light and midsize jets as many new entrants into business aviation went to those segments and would likely be the first to cut back during any type of recession,” Argus said, noting that the bulk of the cooling in 2022 occurred at the lighter end of the market.
Moving forward, Argus continued to point to personnel, supply-chain, and Part 91 flying, in addition to the recession as issues to watch.
