For FBOs around the world, the past year was a roller coaster from the lowest of lows to new peaks as the world continued to adjust and adapt to Covid.
Farnborough Airport (EGLF), UK
While business aviation levels in the U.S. have rebounded to near-normal levels in the wake of the Covid pandemic, that traffic still isn’t going very far afield, amid continued international restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of the virus, even as vaccination programs slowly ramp up around the world. As evidence, according to JetNet, large-cabin jet activity was down 36 percent between 2020 and 2019, while in the second quarter of 2020 those levels plunged by 65 percent.
“It is disappointing to see the Covid relapse in Europe as 2021 has progressed, which has dampened the positive expectations that we had about the recovery,” explained John-Angus Smith, Signature Flight Support’s managing director for EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa). “We continue to see little traffic from outside of EMEA which is reflected in more resilience from the light and mid-size charter aircraft traffic, with our expectation that heavy jet traffic will retu