Fewer Indian Bizjet Fliers in 2018

Unlike the world over, the business jet market saw its best quarter since 2015 with aircraft deliveries increasing 1.5 per cent. In India, however, business was slow with little use of general aviation aircraft.

- 

Enjoy an upturn, but do not compare sales and backlog figures to the high times pre2008 – that was not a boom but a bubble. Normal is now.

That is what industry experts and watchers have been claiming about the present scenario of business jets. The business jet market enjoyed a slight increase in deliveries through the first three months of the year to mark its best first quarter since 2015. According to new data from the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA), global business jet deliveries increased 1.5 percent to 132 aircraft through the first three months of the year. It also represented a 6.8 percent increase over the first-quarter performance of 2016.

However, India saw a unique situation, where for the first time in three financial years, corporate India and High Net Worth (HNW) individuals in the country cut down on the use of personal jets and chartered aircraft, underscoring the broader corporate emphasis on cost control and bottom line enhancement. Industry watchers maintained that stretched airport infrastructure in the fast-expanding aviation markets may also have prompted executives to fly scheduled commercial jetliners.