A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Senior Editor

Curt Epstein

The Easter week proved a slow one for global business aviation traffic, with jet operations down 16 percent from a year ago,&nbsp;according to the latest data from Hamburg, Germany-based WingX Advance. The company attributes this partly to the early holiday this year.
Over the last month, global business jet activity was off 10 percent year-over-year, while worldwide charter and fractional operations fell 15 percent, though the latter was&nbsp;still up by 24 percent from&nbsp;the comparable period in pre-Covid 2019.
In North America for the week, charter and fractional operations dipped by 18 percent year-over-year. Meanwhile, European business jet departures for the week were down by 15 percent from a year ago, marking&nbsp;a larger deficit than the 7 percent decline seen over the past four weeks.
For the week, Asian activity increased by 19 percent versus 2022. With China easing its lockdown measures during the first quarter, its market saw triple-digit growth compared with last April. Ultra-long-range jets remain the busiest segment there.
“There is always significantly less flying during the Easter holidays and as that came earlier this year, the trends are suppressed compared with 2022 and 2019,” explained WingX managing director Richard Koe. “That being said, the deficits compared with 2022 are widening as we move into second-quarter 2023. This reflects a weakening economic environment and sensitivity to the cost of flying private.”

WingX: Easter Week Curtailed Private Travel

An early Easter holiday skewed business aircraft activity comparisons between 2023 and 2022 according to industry analyst WingX Advance.

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