Following the mixed results in the first half of 2019, Argus is anticipating business aviation operations in the U.S. will continue to gain strength in the second half, with increases anticipated in most months, the data specialist forecast said in its newly released 2019 Mid-year Business Aviation Review.

In the first six months, business aviation turbine operations in the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean were up three months and down three months. But overall, flight activity through the first six months was up 0.3 percent from 2018 and flight hours rose 0.7 percent.

Charter operations slipped in each of the first six months and ended down 2.2 percent in the first half. However, the fractional segment made gains throughout the first half, culminating in a 6.2 percent year-over-year gain. The Part 91 segment saw a slight improvement, up in four of the six months and 0.7 percent overall during the period, Argus reported.

Despite this, flights were down for all aircraft segments except midsize jets in the first half. Flight activity for midsize jets was up 3.3 percent in the first half, but down 0.6 percent for large-cabin jets, 1.8 percent for light jets, and 0.4 percent for turboprops.

Gama Aviation Signature logged the most hours of the 135 carriers in the first half at 42,020, which was down from the 43,974 in the first half of 2018. The next closest in terms of flight hours was Executive Jet Management at 31,053 hours, followed by XOJet (23,209), Delta Private Jets (20,314), and Solairus Aviation (15,581).

Argus anticipates that business aviation will be up 2 percent year-over-year in the second half, with September and December expected to bring the strongest gains in this period. Argus forecasts a 4.6 percent increase in September and 3.3 percent in December. Bolstering this is that returns for July surpassed initial expectations of a 1 percent rise; it actually logged a 2.4 percent increase.