Flight hours ‘significantly’ up in Asia, Africa and South America says JSSI

The latest insight report from Jet Support Services Inc (JSSI) says that flight hours in Africa, Asia and South America saw significant increases in the third quarter of 2017.

The JSSI Business Aviation Index looks at the flight utilisation of just over 2,000 aircraft in the third quarter of 2017.

According to the index, average flight hours are the highest they have been since the global economic slowdown in 2008.

Average flight hours have been steadily increasing across 2017, with the third quarter contributing the 4.5% rise in activity so far this year.

“The summer months are consistently the strongest period of the year for flight activity. Our Business Aviation Index has now shown a year-over-year increase in third-quarter flight activity for five consecutive years,” said Neil W. Book, president and CEO of JSSI. “These are encouraging signs that companies are leveraging corporate jets to conduct business around the world. It’s also promising to see such growth in regional diversity coming from markets outside North America and Europe.”

JSSI are also able to analyse utilisation data by global regions, saying that all regions saw increases year-over-year apart from Europe and the Middle East. The region that saw the largest increases was Africa, with 33.2% more flight hours recorded.

By quarter it was Asia-Pacific that activity grew the most, with an 8.6% rise. This was followed closely by South America with 8.3%.

However in North America, the largest business aviation market globally, flight hours declined by 0.9%.