Business aviation flight activity continues to mount a substantial post-Covid-19 recovery, with U.S. traffic on Saturday actually increasing 2.5 percent from a year ago when adjusted for day of the week, according to data from FlightAware. “On Saturday, June 20, business aviation traffic surpassed 2019 numbers for the first time since the initial decline,” said FlightAware CEO Daniel Baker. “Weekday recovery still has ground to make up, but continues to trend upward.”
The company’s data shows that month-to-date worldwide business aviation activity is down 22.7 percent from a year ago, averaging 9,927 flights per day versus 12,845 a day in 2019. In the U.S. alone, flying fell 19.8 percent month-to-date, averaging 8,152 flights per day, down from 10,165 daily a year ago.
From June 14 to 21, the FlightAware data indicates that U.S. business aviation flying continued to gain more steam, decreasing only 17.3 percent—or 82.7 percent of prior-year levels—from the same day-of-week adjusted period a year ago. This was in comparison to airline traffic, which was down nearly 69 percent year-over-year last week.