Avinode (Booth 4114), which specializes in supporting the business aviation charter market with its online platforms and software—Avinode, TripManager, and SchedAero—is celebrating its Swedish heritage this week at NBAA 2018. It said it is also enjoying a notable pickup in the charter market.

“At NBAA this year, we want to showcase our Swedish heritage, which reaffirms the entrepreneurial and innovative spirit that has driven the development of Avinode…Visitors to our stand will get a true sense of what it’s like to be Swedish,” said Alexandra MacRae, Avinode Group head of marketing. This is a spirit that enabled it to become the dominant air charter booking platform—even if in recent years online upstarts and apps have threatened that dominance.

Avinode executives and partner companies will be delivering “Node talks” during the show at the company’s booth, which includes a stage area. There is also a product demo station. MacRae noted, “[The company] is at the center of business aviation, providing sourcing, and booking platforms, operations software and the industry’s first online payment platform [PayNode].”

Avinode’s analysis of the market has led it to conclude that business aviation in North America “is finally recovering after many difficult years.” He said the trend can be seen “globally, in Europe and, critically, in the key market of North America.”

Senior commercial analyst Harry Clarke reported that “sustained growth” was being seen for the first time since the onset of the financial crisis in 2007/2008. “We’ve been analyzing flight requests submitted through Avinode and the results are very encouraging. The growth shown reflects both increased industry activity and increased use of Avinode. Our data reveals, for example, all the leading North American destinations are enjoying increasing demand for private air charter traffic.”

He noted that Las Vegas McCarran International Airport is the “most requested” North American destination for flights originating in North America. New Jersey's Teterboro Airport is second, followed by Southern California's Van Nuys and Miami Opa-Locka Executive. The increases are significant—comparing August 2018 with the previous year, requests for McCarran were up 75 percent, while those for Teterboro and Van Nuys climbed 100 percent and 103 percent, respectively.

Avinode’s analysis also shows a rising number of requests for large-cabin and ultra-long-range aircraft. “A sense of renewed and justified optimism is building throughout the industry,” said Clarke, who said the trend toward use of online and mobile device booking was likely to continue. “The challenge ahead is to improve business aviation’s online offering to be as seamless and transparent as the digital services provided by the rest of the industry.”

Avinode is also reporting a 47 percent increase in air charter searches through API interfaces with its platform. It estimates 80 percent of the broker and operator community use Avinode, but only one in 10 of these use its “B2B2C” products. However, that still accounts for “almost 50 percent of total traffic on Avinode.” Noel Trout, CTO of Avinode Group, said the business aviation market is being driven by technology and invited more third parties, such as brokers, to explore its API option.

Meanwhile, Avinode has upgraded two web apps, allowing operators and brokers to add full Avinode search capabilities to their own websites, with or without an “empty leg” app. This is all within the third-party’s own website and branding. Monitoring such activity is also included as a new feature in the updated web apps.