Luxury yacht market growth fuels private jet demand

GlobeAir Citation Mustang
Growing demand for yachts is fuelling a similar growth in demand for private jet travel, says GlobeAir.
The company was a sponsor of last week’s Cannes Yachting Festival, which starts the European boat show season, and said that private jets were the “preferred mode of transport” for yacht owners because of their flexibility.
GlobeAir, which owns and operates 16 Mustang jets, estimates that the number of flights it operated between June and August this year into Nice, Olbia, Ibiza, Palma de Mallorca and Malaga airports – popular amongst those holidaying on yachts – was on average 16% higher than last year, and 24.3% more than in 2015.
For the market as whole, overall business aviation flights to these airports was up between 4% and 20.7% in August compared to the same month last year
Airport | Percentage increase in business aircraft flights August 2017 compared to August 2016 |
Nice Cote D’azur | 9% |
Olbia Costa Smeralda | 4% |
Ibiza | 8.4% |
Palma de Mallorca | 5.2% |
Malaga | 8.2% |
Mikonos | 20.7% |
Mauro De Rosa, chief marketing and sales officer of GlobeAir, said: “Growth in the yacht market is playing a key role in growing demand for private jets. There are now more than 5,000 super yachts in service and close to 500 more expected to complete construction by 2020. Furthermore, the global yacht charter market is set to increase at over 7% CAGR between now and 2026.
“Private jet is the preferred mode of transport for people to reach their yachts as it allows extreme flexibility along with the possibility to book the flight with a very limited notice.”