Private Aviation’s Role as we Revert to Normal, post COVID-19

By Tim Barber, Duncan Aviation

I wrote an article around a year ago entitled "What's stopping you flying"; but what a different world we now find ourselves in. At that stage I focused on the benefits of flexibility, choosing the time you want to fly; flying from an airport closer to your home or your destination; improved security because you know who is on your flight; speed through the airport due to no queuing at departure or arrival; greater comfort, whether this is the consequence of more legroom or cabin pressurisation and so on.

The purpose of the article was to counter some of the misinformation concerning the environmental impact of flying privately and the emergence of the Flygskam movement (flight shaming) and the inevitable exposés in the media of celebrity excess. Of course, politics of envy drives much more of this hysteria than the environmental concerns but it's rarely presented in that way. The reality is that all aviation activities contribute just 2% of carbon emissions, with private aviation creating just 2% of that 2%, so it's a tiny percentage of the global issue that gets a disproportionate amount of attention.

However, since then things have changed and we now have COVID-19 impacting upon our lives and I believe that once life returns to "normal", we'll see even more interest from the UHNW sector seeking to exploit the benefit of private aircraft charter, primarily for health reasons. Whether flying First, Business or Economy, we're all going to be looking more carefully at who is around us.

We are already seeing companies seeking to increase the seating in some of their aircraft as they envisage flying a wider element of their senior team around - anything to keep them out of commercial aircraft. And the private jet charter market will be very busy as we come out of lockdown. We're confident that the sales of private jets will pick up swiftly too.

Duncan Aviation is the largest family owned maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility in the world, providing complete acquisition, sales and nose-to-tail support services for business aircraft. Tim Barber looks after Aircraft Sales and Acquisitions across the globe and can be contacted at +44 7836 352676 or tim.barber@duncanaviation.com.