According to WingX's weekly market tracker, business aviation flights to and from Europe are down by 24 per cent so far in March 2020 compared to the same days in March 2019. The slowdown accelerated into a slump last week, with flight activity over the most recent weekend falling by 70 per cent.

Italy has been most affected, with business jet and turboprop flights down by 65 per cent this month, which amounts to a reduction of just under 2,000 sectors. Flights from and to France, Turkey, Belgium, Netherlands and Poland are down by 30 per cent or more. Transatlantic flights are also down by a third this month.

The UK is the busiest business aviation market this month, with only an 8 per cent reduction in flight movements, and flight hours for flights are trending up so far in March. There has also been an increase in flights from Sweden, Portugal, Latvia and Estonia. Flights from Europe to Cyprus, China and UAE are up this month.

In terms of airport activity, the top airports have seen significant decreases in activity, although these reductions are generally trending below the overall market decline. Le Bourget and Geneva are significant exceptions. Month-to-date trends for London airports show less effect, and indeed Biggin Hill activity is up so far this month.

All aircraft segments are flying a lot less compared to March 2019, with the biggest drops being in large aircraft activity, namely bizliners and ultra-long range and heavy jets. Very light and super light jet activity is least affected, down by 10-15 per cent.

The busiest aircraft types so far this month have been light jets and props, such as the King Air 200, PC-12, Citation Mustang, Phenom 300 and CJ2. The Bombardier Global 6000/6500 type is the busiest large jet MTD. A few aircraft have increased activity in March, including the Learjet 40 and PC-24.

By operator type, aircraft management companies have seen a 40 per cent reduction in flights, whereas branded charter operators, which had strong growth at the start of the month, are down only 10 per cent MTD. Ambulance flights have more than doubled, whereas ad hoc cargo operator activity has slumped.

WingX MD Richard Koe comments: “In the first week of this month, as the virus diffused across Europe, business aviation activity increased in several countries, reflecting the increasingly urgent demand for rescue and repatriation. With Europe becoming the epicentre of the pandemic in the last 10 days, government suppression policies have eroded that demand more severely. So far this week, business aviation is operating at about 50 per cent of normal frequency, which may indicate an ongoing resilience. This could be essential, with airline capacity shutting down and scheduled flights down by almost 80 per cent.”

In upcoming trackers WingX will be capturing all global business aviation activity on a multi regional basis and relating these trends to wider trends in airline and cargo movements.