Martin Placek
Research expert covering transportation and electronics
Business aviation market in the United States - statistics & facts
The business aviation market consists in the use of any general aviation aircraft for a business purpose. A business aircraft is one designed for transporting small groups of business people for commercial reasons at a time convenient to their needs. Business aircraft may be adapted for other roles such as, evacuation of casualties or express parcel deliveries, and are also used by public bodies, government officials or by the military. Starting in France around the 1950s, firms and government regulations supported the development of the business aviation industry further. Given the increasing economic coordination in the aftermath of 1950s, the need for high productivity of entrepreneurs to facilitate business success became more crucial. The opportunity to travel to places not served by commercial aviation made business aviation more appealing as firms expanded their operations. The United States has by far the largest market in the world, with almost 21,900 business aircraft in 2019. By contrast, in that year there were 4,159 business aircraft in all of Europe.
State of the U.S. business aviation market
In 2020, the size of the charter market in the U.S. dropped to around 25 billion U.S. dollars. The U.S. business aviation industry experienced an expanding trend in its fleet capacity in the last years, with the total fleet size increasing from 19,894 in 2015 to 21,888 aircraft in 2019. In 2020, due to the coronavirus pandemic, business aircraft operators flew a total of 1.28 million hours in the United States, a relatively low decrease compared to the commercial market. Since business aviation offers more flexibility, time saving and enlarged possible reach, the demand for rapid air travel is expected to grow. One could observe this overall expansion in the growth of individual business aviation firms. Annual revenue of industry-leader Gama Aviation increased continuously since 2016, reaching 246.8 million U.S. dollars in 2019.Business aircraft manufacturers
The business aviation is a very niche market that consists of companies of all sizes that rely on many different types of aircraft — from single-pilot airplane to turbine aircraft — that fly internationally, to helicopters that survey rush-hour traffic. Jet and turboprops are two main types of aircraft in the U.S. business aviation. During 2019, there were over 13,000 jet aircraft registered in the U.S. Some of the biggest manufacturers of business aircraft include: Bombardier, Cessna, Dassault, Gulfstream, and Embraer.
