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To view this page ensure that Adobe Flash Player version 9.0.124 or greater is installed. The network of airport pairs linked by business avi-ation has 100,000 links, three times as many links as the scheduled flight network. The business network carries much less traffic and, in some parts of the industry, for 40% of the time the aircraft are flying empty on positioning flights. Business aviation is not about taking passengers from the front cabin of a scheduled flight and flying them in their own aircraft. Business aviation fills a gap in scheduled services: most business flights are between cities not served by scheduled flights. The business and scheduled aviation markets in Europe both have around 700 operators each. Since business aviation is ten times smaller, this means that there are many business operators with only one or two aircraft. These individuals, or small firms, have very limited resources to keep up with changes in equipment requirements or other regu-lations. Business aviation has its share of long-haul, but only about 9% of business flights are over 2000km. Most business flights are shorter than average scheduled flight, with nearly half under 500km: for business aviation the taxi is a better metaphor than the ocean liner. On two narrow but important measurements of safety, business aviation is improving. With poor
Figure 1. The 500 busiest business aviation routes in Europe (2005) data on numbers of passengers, it is difficult to make a precise comparison between business aviation and other modes of transport. However, the fatality rates appear higher than those for scheduled flights, but similar to travelling the same distance by motorway in the case of turboprops, and similar to rail in the case of business jets. |
