As business aviation providers, Avionco staff spend a lot of time flying ourselves and that gives us time to think about our own business and read about the trends that impact it. Earlier this year Forbes published an article on business aviation trends from the perspective of several providers like ourselves. One thing is certain, our industry is changing and those that pay attention, adjust and adapt will be the companies we’re still reading about in 2025.
In today’s blog we thought we’d weigh in on 5 of the many business aviation trends that will change the way we and others do business in the future… the nearfuture.
- Customers are the biggest catalyst of change. Avionco has long believed that customer service is everything but yesterday’s version of what that means will be different than tomorrow’s. There are two key factors driving the evolution of the business aviation customer. First, there are more of them than ever before. Second, growth is coming from a younger, digitally connected generation of business leaders and wealthy citizens. While ego and image still play a role, this new kind of customer is driven more by efficiency and accessibility. All other trends quite simply come back to this point.
- Consolidation of services to one source. For corporations and private flyers, part of the move to efficiency and accessibility is finding one provider with experience and infrastructure to handle everything needed to have hassle free, safe and cost effective flight services. For Avionco, that has meant building an organization that can provide those services including flight ops, tech ops, aircraft management, charter and others. Pause for shameless promotion – While you’re here, browse our website to see what we mean.
- Traditional buying patterns are changing. This is pretty much another customer service point, but worth mentioning. Today’s customer is moving from ownership of aircraft to other purchase options like fractional ownership, shares and a la carte models. To us that means providers will need to be agile and flexible in terms of what they offer, how they offer it and who they partner with. We believe our partnerships with GetJet and Avinode are providing us with that kind of agility and flexibility.
- Customers are moving from smaller to newer and bigger. Changing customer demographics and increased accessibility to private aviation mean there are more people flying. As a result, many of those who are looking for efficiency are looking at aircraft that can hold enough passengers as well as meet all their needs from baggage to food service. To serve this need, Avionco flies a Challenger 850 with class leading baggage capacity and full galley.
- Pilot shortage continues to cause service headaches for providers. Finding pilots and crew has never been harder. The demands of the business and increased competition are snatching up pilots and creating a global shortage. Smart providers will also be in the pilot acquisition business. We’ve been in that business for over 20 years but that doesn’t mean we can take it for granted. Recently we created a state of the art global database populated with pilots for virtually all types of aircraft.
These are just 5 of the many trends we are watching every day and building plans and infrastructure to allow us to stay ahead of the curve. It’s a challenge, but I guess that’s part of what we love about the business aviation game.