Business and vacation hybrid private flights.
The urge to escape, after long months of lock down or other forms of segregation, is causing demand for private flights to explode. The new phenomenon is that more and more people are turning to private jet rentals to combine business trips with vacation stays in the same destination, mostly by bringing family on the private jet.
Rental requests are on the rise especially in the United States
As Europe recovers, it is in the United States that we are witnessing a real boom in private flights. This largely concerns domestic flights. Indeed, the United States being much larger than any European country, there is no border or health barrier that could hinder flights even over 5,000 km. What is more, this country offers a lot of vacation possibilities. In Europe, especially with the emergence of the Delta variant, restrictions on air traffic inside Europe and with countries outside the European Union are increasing. Often you have to do tests no more than 24 or 48 hours before departure, or you have to be vaccinated twice; some countries even apply quarantine measures that can go up to 14 days.
There is no doubt that the demand for private jet rentals cannot explode under such conditions, which are of course justified by the emergence of health conditions.
Airliners struggle to recover in Europe
Scheduled flights struggle to regain pre-pandemic levels. Look at the image above: the top 10 European countries for air traffic have a number of flights that is on average 35% lower than in 2019, before the pandemic. There is an increase compared to previous weeks, but this is mainly due to the start of the summer season. We can still see the exit of the tunnel, however, as long as enough people agree to be vaccinated to stem the spread of the Delta variant.