News Release

Aim of Emperor sees business aviation on the rise; number of charter flights increases for second year in a row

September 7, 2021:

In anticipation of the RUBAE 2021 business aviation exhibition, the Aim of Emperor group has published the latest statistics and trends on the Russian business aviation market, which are based on data gathered from the group's two charter brokers, LLJets and QuantumVia.

The global lockdown and the COVID-19 pandemic revealed new growth opportunities: in the first three summer months the demand for charter flights on business jets grew by 163% compared to the same period in 2020 and by 215% compared to the pre-COVID 2019 year. Aim of Emperor experts associate this significant growth with several circumstances at once.

“COVID-19 has given a strong boost to the demand for private flights,” says Alisher Elmuradov, commercial director at the Aim of Emperor group and co-owner of LLJets charter broker. "n the one hand, passengers who flew before the pandemic began to fly more often and renedt aircraft for all family members, trying to protect them. On the other hand, regular air traffic still has not recovered to historical levels, so there is an influx of completely new passengers who were not familiar with business aviation before the pandemic. "

Looking at the portrait of new customers you will often see premium class passengers of commercial aviation, who were simply forced by circumstances to use business aviation services. The number of newcomers grew steadily throughout the pandemic year and by the summer of 2021 made up a full-fledged new market segment. According to analysts at Aim of Emperor, in the summer of 2021, the share of new users was 23%.

The most popular destinations that charter flight passengers chose were the ones with open borders. This explains the high summer demand for Greece, such as Thessaloniki and the Greek islands, where there were no restrictions for Russian tourists. Nice, Pisa, London and Sochi in Russia also became popular destinations for the summer of 2021.

The most popular aircraft types are the capacious business jets with large luggage compartments, such as the Legacy 600/650 and Challenger 604/605. The Hawker 850 is chartered for flights within Russia.

The format of jet sharing, which has become popular since the stopping of regular flights, is developing into an independent market niche. There appeared key players in the industry that are focusing on this service and also permanent directions appeared. Among them are Genoa, London, Dubai, Tivat, Thessaloniki, Antalya and Nice.

Speaking about the passengers' mood, Aim of Emperor experts agree that the depth of flight booking has increased: from two weeks to one to two months. Indirectly, this indicates a certain stabilisation of the situation. At the same time, charter flights clients prefer to look for flexible dates of flights, which allow them to find a more favourable cost for the flight.

The summer months of 2021 were among the most intense in the last five years, and the high demand season is expected to last until mid-September. The effect of mass vaccination makes it possible to make positive forecasts for winter pre-New Year activity, and the recovery of the Russian market itself, to a greater or lesser extent, demonstrates a global trend.