Business aircraft flight operations are continuing to ebb from the feverish pace of 2022, down 4.8 percent year-over-year globally in March with projected further declines this month, according to Argus International. Releasing its latest TraqPak report, Argus noted that activity dropped by 5.8 percent in North America and by 13.6 percent in Europe in March. These trends are anticipated to slide into April’s traffic with the North American business aircraft operations forecast to be down by 8.9 percent and Europe activity by 16.9 percent, year-over-year.

In North America, however, flight activity did tick up by 14.6 percent from February, Argus noted, crediting the three additional days on the calendar in addition to stronger demand. However, compared with March 2022, fractional activity marked the only positive gain, up 6.4 percent.

Part 135 activity “remains in the pattern of stable declines from its all-time highs,” Argus said, finishing down 12 percent in the month. Part 91 flights were off 4.3 percent. All four categories of aircraft (including turboprops) were down in the month year-over-year, led by midsize cabins at an 8.5 percent drop and small cabins at 7.1 percent.

Incidentally, Part 135 small-cabin operations showed the most significant decrease, at 18.2 percent. Conversely, small-cabin fractional operations marked the greatest gain, up by 12.7 percent.

In Europe, large-cabin activity plummeted 32.7 percent from March 2022, while midsize cabins showed the next steepest decline at 8.6 percent. Small cabin and turboprop operations were down only slightly in comparison, at -3 percent and -1.1 percent, respectively.

As for the rest of the world, activity was up 17.7 percent year-over-year, with large cabin activity rebounding by 27.9 percent. As recovery from the pandemic continues in these areas, Argus notes that the corresponding regions have shown monthly gains for seven of the past eight months.