Demand for business aviation charter flights in Europe is seeing a "healthy rise”, with the US market also growing strongly, says Avinode, the online exchange for charter services.
The Swedish-based company reports that flight requests through its marketplace have sharply increased from almost all the main European cities.
France remains the most popular destination for flights within the continent, with one-fifth of the overall market. Avinode says requests for flights to the country rose 27% in the year to 31 March compared with the same period in the previous year. The UK, Spain and Italy, though slightly smaller markets, were up 36%, 44% and 37% respectively.
Oliver King, chief executive of Avinode Group, says that the UK is "closing the gap" on France and benefits from higher traffic to and from the USA. He adds: "The substantial growth in demand for travel to Spain, after so many difficult years for the country economically, is great to see."
The most popular route requested by Avinode customers is London Luton to Nice Côte d’Azur, while Ibiza features in four of the 20 most requested intra-European routes. The most popular aircraft type is the Cessna Mustang and Citations fill all five top spots, with the CJ2, XLS, CJ2+ and XLS+ making up the list.
Flights from Russia dominate traffic into Europe from outside the region, representing 66% of requests in this market. Departures from the USA (6% of the market) and Saudi Arabia (4%) come next. For routes into Europe, the Bombardier Challenger 604 leads the sector, followed by the Embraer Legacy 600.
Get all the coverage direct from EBACE on our dedicated event page
Source: Flight Daily News
