Boom time for Millennials

In 1992, just months after the collapse of the Soviet Union, political economist Francis Fukuyama put forward a theory that the future would no longer be a struggle between different ideologies. We would, he argued, see a world of peace and liberal democracies. Now, we know that he was wrong. The world is now split, perhaps more than ever before.

On one side you have Baby Boomers (born between 1945 and 1960) and on the other Millennials (born between the late 1980s and the early 2000s).

Baby boomers criticise Millennials for eating avocado on toast, being addicted to their phones and living with their parents. Millennials blame Boomers for the Global Financial Crisis, melting icecaps and a broken housing market.

But at least the European Business Aviation Association (EBAA) is trying to understand Millennials. It asked a (trendily named) consultancy called Think Young to poll 2,000 Millennials in Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Switzerland to find out what they think about business aviation.

Their answers were pretty encouraging.

“The results were revealing, showing a partial understanding of the concept of Business Aviation. They also showed that young people value the time and efficiency of Business Aviation over other factors,” say EBAA and Think Young. “While Millennials are able to grasp the main concept of Business Aviation, they overlook much of what the sector does.”

The survey’s authors say that most Millennials did not consider corporate helicopters, medical flights, humanitarian flights or drones to be part of business aviation. This is not surprising. Most people, of any age, outside of the industry would probably miss this as well.

Millennials are also really excited about new technology: “especially vertical take-off and lift personal aviation vehicles” (see VTOL Investor for more). Some 59% of those polled believe “that personal air transport vehicles will drastically change society as we know it.” About 40% of the people they spoke to believed that climate change would have a big impact on the future of air transport.

EBAA is keen for people to give their thoughts on the survey. Millenials are encouraged to Tweet with the hashtag #expandinghorizons. Baby Boomers can write to EBAA, Square de Mees, 37, 1000 Brussels, Belgium. Or send a Fax.

You can find the report here: https://expandinghorizons.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/HOW-MILLENNIALS-SEE-THE-FUTURE-OF-BUSINESS-AVIATION_EBAA_ThinkYoung_FINAL.pdf