Executive Summary – Charter Report 2022

There are many reasons to charter a private jet. Some are obvious, like the need for privacy and the ability to set your own schedules or make multiple trips in one day. But in certain geographies chartering a jet can be a lifeline, connecting cities and towns that don’t have commercial airline schedules.

As an alternative to commercial flights, charter flights have not been greatly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw scheduled commercial flights dramatically reduced. In the post-pandemic era, charter flights are playing an important role in medical evacuation, domestic short-haul flights and international repatriation.

As of June 30, 2022, Asia-Pacific based business jets for charter totalled 339, a net increase of 12 aircraft from the 327 in 2020 and equivalent to 3.7% growth across the two years. With an average age of 16.3 years, the charter fleet accounted for 28% of the total business jets in Asia-Pacific.

The decline in the number of charter jets in Greater China and South Asia was less than the net additions in Oceania, Southeast Asia, and East Asia, which resulted in an overall increase in the Asia-Pacific fleet.

With a total of 81 charter jets, Australia, the main driver of growth across APAC, saw a net addition of 15 charter jets (22.7% increase) and overtook mainland China as the biggest charter market in Asia-Pacific. Light and Large charter jets made up the majority of the additions to the Australian fleet, mainly due to the growing demand for charter flights in the country and surrounding areas.

Mainland China was the second-largest charter market in Asia-Pacific, despite domestic economic depression, reduced demand and the highest net fleet deductions. Overall, seven aircraft left mainland China’s charter fleet, which is equivalent to a 9% decline.

Textron, Bombardier and Gulfstream continued to be the top three OEMs in the charter market with a combined market share of 72%. Smaller OEMs performed much better when compared to the previous period. With 15 or more jets, the Citation 550 (II/IISP/SII/Bravo), Global 6000 and Falcon 2000 family were the most popular charter models in APAC.

Regarding the size category, the Asia-Pacific market shifted away from larger-sized charter jets. Although Long Range charter aircraft witnessed the most growth, Light charter aircraft, which were primarily used for domestic flying, have become the most popular category since 2020. Australia was the home to the largest Light charter fleet.

About three-quarters of the charter fleet in Asia-Pacific were registered in the country that the aircraft was based, with Australia, mainland China and India being the top three registries. However, offshore registries have become increasingly attractive to charter operators, and became comparable to the N-reg of United States – the most popular registration country besides local ones, especially for those operating Long Range aircraft.

Overall, life has not improved for charter operators in Asia-Pacific over the past two years, with most operators seeing limited growth in their charter fleets. However, a few top-ranked operators still managed to expand their fleets. For example, Phenix Jet jumped to the top of the list with a net addition of seven charter aircraft, making it the largest charter operator in Asia-Pacific. In addition, the fleets of TAG Aviation and Seletar Jet increased by four aircraft each, whilst Lily Jet and Australia’s Avcair each added three charter jets.

In the past two years, charter aircraft have been used more frequently for short-haul flights. The top ten popular charter routes were all short-haul routes, with an average flight hour of 1 hour and 29 minutes. Jakarta to Denpasar Bali, Singapore to Jakarta, and Mumbai to Delhi were the top three charter flight routes. Meanwhile, Bankstown (BWU), Chhatrapati Shivaji (BOM), and Indira Gandhi (DEL) were the most popular airports for charter flights in Asia-Pacific.

International charter operators are also an essential part of charter operations in APAC. From July 2020 to June 2022, the top ten international operators flew a total of 37,053 hours in APAC according to JETNET’s flight activity records. With 19,076 Asian flight hours, Vistajet was the largest charter operator based outside Asia-Pacific. India, Malaysia, Hong Kong SAR, Japan and China were the most popular departure or arrival countries/regions. It was not surprising that Long Range aircraft – Global 6000, Gulfstream G650ER and Large aircraft – Challenger 850 were the most popular models used by international charter operators, given that 59% of the flights performed by international charter operators are cross-regional.