Blog

Private jet industry is a sub-category of aviation industry involving the general aviation flights that make use of jets, usually owned privately by people rather than commercial companies or organizations. Initially, private jet flights were differentiated from other general aviation flights on the basis of pilot status. A flight would be categorized as a private jet flight if the pilot is not a hired one, rather all expenses of the flight would be borne by the pilot. However, by recent standards, a flight will be considered a private jet flight if the purpose of flight falls under the category of personal motives/private business reasons, even if it is operated by a commercial or hired pilot (1).

The remarkable economic growth of China has been witnessed by the global communities as China evolves as a rising economy in the recent decade. Since, the development of the private jet industry in a country is directly linked with economic growth, China’s emerging economy has also impacted the private jet industry growth in the country. Moreover, the changes in China’s legislations regarding private jet ownership in 2018 have also played a significant role in the growth and development of the private jet industry. Data resources suggested an uplift of the private jet industry after 2018 as the number of privately owned jets increase from 34 to 466 business jets within a year. These jets are owned by more than a hundred billionaires of China pointing again towards the business growth and wealth increase due to economic stability in China (2). Interestingly, a decline in the overall expenditure ratio among the Chinese billionaires including private jet purchases was observed during the trade war between the United States (US) and China. The statistical figures from the Billionaire Report of 2019 has depicted an overall declining trend by 12.3% in net wealth of billionaires from China. Nevertheless, growth in the private jet industry in China depicted by the increased number of privately owned business jets implies a shift in the local business approaches and trade model in the local business community of China (2,3).

The paradigm shift in business structure and incorporation of newly developed information technology based approaches lead to encouragement of fast and robust communication in the business community. Consequently, emerging development in the major industries of China, including insurance, real estate and luxury products, leads to more demand for the private jet industry. Subsequently, private jet sellers have been observed to generate more revenue in recent 2-3 years. For instance, a single CEO of a private jet seller company has sold 110 private jets to Chinese billionaires as well as businessmen from different industries, generating a revenue up to $20-$70 million per order. Furthermore, the estimates by research institute Hurun Report state that 164 private jets have been sold to 114 Chinese businessmen including 78 billionaires with net assets more than $1 billion by the year 2017. Additionally, VistaJet reports showed the private jet industry in China to be the fastest growing market in 2018 due to a 347 percent growth increment (4). Recently, VistaJet has revealed an increase in long-hour private travel trends as 11% of VistaJet flights were observed to be as long as eight or more hours that were flying between China and US (5).

References:

1. Wikipedia. Private Aviation. Accessed from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_aviation

2. Daxue Consulting. China’s private jet market: Insight into Chinese billionaires. 2020. Accessed from https://daxueconsulting.com/china-market-research-on-private-jets/

3. James Asquith. Forbes. Chinese Investment In Private Aviation Continues To Grow. 2020. Accessed from https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesasquith/2020/01/04/chinese-investment-in-private-aviation-continues-to-grow/?sh=311d72243f11

4. Li Xuanmin. Global Times. Chinese private jet buyers shift from traditional sectors to new IT and high-tech industries. 2019. Accessed from https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1157130.shtml

5. Lark Gould. Multi Briefs. Private jet travel: 2021 to be the year private flying takes off. 2021. Accessed from https://exclusive.multibriefs.com/content/private-jet-travel-2021-to-be-the-year-private-flying-takes-off/travel-hospitality-event-managemen