COVID-19 will continue to benefit bizjets into the future

Australian Corporate Jet Centres’ Sam Iliades says the new audience attracted to private jets during the pandemic won’t go away

The business aviation sector in Australia is continuing to grow, which is evident through the sector’s ongoing additional fixed-wing and rotary aircraft deliveries, as well as through increased charter activity. Obviously, like the rest of the travel industry COVID hit us pretty hard. We were essentially grounded, but we used the time to run the ground. For example, we were networking, and meeting clients over zoom, trying to build a bigger client base and educate people on what we do and on charter operations, which is a task that has also continued to pay off despite easing travel restrictions, and helping the business charter industry moving forward. 

As such, COVID-19 actually presented the sector with a number of great opportunities as well, as new clientele got locked out, or felt apprehensive, of traditional domestic carriers. For us, we were seeing people who had never chartered an aircraft before, who needed to move staff around despite the challenges in the domestic air travel market. They would reach out to ask about our services, what we do, how we sanitise and keep our aircraft safe, all of our COVID practices in terms of our staff, and ultimately decide to charter through us for the first time.