Charter Report 2023

EDITOR’S NOTE
It would be remiss of me not
to begin this Editor’s Note by
thanking everybody that voted
for Asian Sky Group to win
the ‘Best Media’ award at the
recent Asian Business Aviation
(AsBAA) Gala Awards Dinner.
Although we have now won the
award five times in a row, each
time we have won is as equally
as important to us as the first time.
The award recognizes our dedication to publishing accurate,
verifiable data that helps business leaders like you make timely
and accurate business critical decisions. That is the reason
why Asian Sky Group began publishing reports and why we will
continue to invest in our research.
Two weeks before the awards dinner my son had the opportunity
to visit me in Hong Kong for the first time. As a 16-year-old, it was
also the first time that he had been in Asia. In the taxi on the way
to the airport to catch his flight back I asked him what he thought
about Hong Kong, and if he liked it. Fortunately, he did, and can’t
wait to come back. His answer to why he like it made think for a
while though; “It’s just different here,” he said.
It might seem like a surly response from a typical 16-year-old, and
to be fair to him this conversation did take place at 06:00, but on
reflection his response makes perfect sense. Although he lives in
Europe, he’s been to the US and Latin America, so coming to Asia
was almost like a mini culture shock to him.
It is easy for those of us lucky enough to live in Asia to forget
that Asia is different to the rest of the world. This is especially
noticeable in our industry, where we often group Asia in with the
rest of the world. This happens frequently, especially when talking
about the health of the industry. But it is, quite frankly, a mistake.
It is true that the total Asian-based fleet of business jets make
up a small percentage of the global fleet. But unlike most other
regions, possibly with the exception of the Middle East, the
installed fleet here is more valuable in dollar terms per aircraft
than it is elsewhere, thanks to the desire of Asian owners to buy
large aircraft.
But the Asia market isn’t just different due to the size of its aircraft.
The subtle nuances from country to country make the markets here
fascinating, and in some cases, almost immune to what is going on
outside of the region.
Of course, that isn’t always the case, but it was noticeable that due
to their geographic size, the business jet markets in some Asian
countries recovered from COVID-19 quicker than others. This was
mostly because they had large domestic markets that were hungry
to travel but weren’t yet able to travel internationally.
One of those countries was China, which during COVID-19 saw an
influx of new charter clients. They were attracted by the relative
safety that flying private offered versus commercial flying, and in
some cases the chose to fly private because they had no choice as
many commercial airline schedules had been cut.
This was not common to China though. Globally we saw a bounce,
we saw new charter clients flying private for the first time. But as
we began to manage and live with the pandemic, the number of
charter clients began to slow down. Some stuck around, others
went back to the airlines.
This wasn’t the case in China though, where still to this day the
country is still seeing a surge of charter enquiries. So many in fact
that one of Asia-Pacific’s biggest private jet operators told Asian
Sky Group that it doesn’t have enough capacity to keep up with the
number of enquiries that it has been getting and could possibly
be looking to acquire more aircraft to keep up with demand.
That operator was Sino Jet, and you can read more about our
conversation with its President Jenny Lau on page 17.
Elsewhere in this edition we take a forensic look the Asia-Pacific
charter fleet by dissecting the region’s biggest operators, as well
as the most popular aircraft types used for charter flights. We also
look at the most popular aircraft registries used for the charter
fleet, and the most popular OEMs.
3 | ASIA-PACIFIC CHARTER REPORT 2023