Over the course of golf's Masters Tournament week in the US, the local Augusta Regional airport handles 22 per cent of its total annual private jet traffic, with around 2,500 aircraft movements in the run up and directly afterwards. Air Charter Service Americas president Richard Thompson says: “On a normal day at the airport, American Airlines flies to and from Atlanta and Delta Airlines flies to and from Charlotte, plus they handle an average of around ten private jet flights. Every year in April, however, Augusta hosts one of the busiest sporting events for private jets in the world, on a scale similar to that of the Super Bowl.”
Based on WingX figures for the period of 1-9 April, 2018, and covering a couple of days either side of the tournament last year, there were almost 2,500 private jet flights to and from Augusta airport, equal to almost a quarter of the annual traffic in the space of just nine days. The peak day was Friday, 6 April, when the airport handled 431 separate aircraft movements. The figure is virtually identical to that of the previous year, with a mere 28 less aircraft movements over the same period in 2017.
“We always see a lot of bookings for flights to the tournament due to its popularity and it being such a notoriously unpredictable major. In fact Sports Illustrated recently dubbed it 'the best week in golf'. We have been booking charters for the tournament since the end of last year and we have had a number of staff at the airport to oversee our charter flights,” Thompson concludes.