“March marked a tipping point in business aviation, when the full impact of the Covid-19 crisis was felt industrywide,” said Jet Support Services (JSSI) president and CEO Neil Book. “As the world economy began to shut down, so did business jet travel,”

In fact, JSSI’s latest quarterly business aviation index revealed that flight hours in March fell 12.9 percent month-over-month and were the lowest recorded for that month since 2008. Flight hours were down 5.7 percent year-over-year in the first quarter, it added.

According to the JSSI index, the sudden drop-off in March flight activity was particularly apparent in North America, where much of the world’s business aviation fleet is based, falling 25 percent from a year earlier. Europe, however, bucked the trend with a 5.1 percent year-over-year increase due to the “frenzy of business aircraft activity in the region that preceded the impending closure of international borders and almost total shut down,” JSSI said.

JSSI’s flight hour data by aircraft type reflects that the most substantial drop in March activity occurred for large-cabin jets, which recorded a 15.5 percent decrease from February. “This is believed to be a result of the virtual halt for long-range, cross-continental business jet travel caused by the coronavirus emergency during the second half of March,” JSSI noted. It saw “less pronounced” utilization declines in other aircraft types.

Book said JSSI expects April flight hours to be down more than 75 percent, but anticipates an increase this month “as a number of countries begin to slowly open back up.”