Charter Report 2023

SPONSORED CONTENT
SINO JET’S CHINA
CHARTER INCREASE
Speaking from her Hong Kong office, Sino Jet Group’s president Jenny Lau sounds a lot more upbeat about the
prospects for private jet charter in China than many others would have you believe.
You could argue that she has to be positive, after all, not only is she the head of Asia-Pacific’s biggest private
jet operator, but she is also the chair of AsBAA – the Asian Business Aviation Association. But Lau backs up
her comments with data, all of which paints a much rosier picture than many would have you believe.
it offers. Not only could travellers be comforted by the fact that they
would only be flying with people they know, but because they were
able to use FBOs rather than airline terminals, they could reduce
their possible points of contact with other people. According to
one Austria-based private jet operator, by flying privately you could
reduce your potential COVID-19 touchpoints down from 700 if flying
on a commercial airline, to just 20 if flying on a private jet.
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic it was a different story.
Scheduled airline flights were cut, and people’s movements were
restricted all around the world as everybody stayed home trying to
stay safe. Although the early days of the pandemic did see some
charter flights taking place, these were largely repatriation flights -
moving people from where they were stranded back to their homes.
As the pandemic began to subside, more people began to see the
benefits of flying privately, partly due to a lack of scheduled airline
flights, but also in part due to the increased safety and security that
Although mainland China was amongst the last countries to open
itself back up to outside visitors, it had one advantage that other
countries didn’t always have, which was the size of the country itself.
What this meant in practical terms was that the domestic market
could thrive even though very few international flights could take
place. This is especially true given that pre-pandemic, Beijing to
Shanghai and vice versa was already one of the busiest private jet
routes in Asia-Pacific.
So, with the domestic market thriving, China’s private jet charter
companies flourished. But there was always one big question, one
nagging doubt at the back of everybody’s minds; What would happen
when scheduled airline services returned to pre-pandemic levels?
17 | ASIA-PACIFIC CHARTER REPORT 2023