Avinode, the Sweden-based charter marketplace, recorded its highest ever number of charter requests in the day following President Trump’s 30-day ban on visitors to the US from the Schengen group of European countries.
President Trump announced a ban on visitors from the 26 Schengen countries, which allow free and unhindered travel within their borders, during a televised address to Americans on March 11, 2020.
The travel ban, which does not affect the UK or Ireland, comes into effect at 23:59 Eastern Standard Time on Friday March 13, 2020.
Although the US will still let its citizens and dependants back into the country, anyone returning from a Schengen country will be quarantined for 14 days.
The day after the travel ban was announced, Avinode says that it saw the highest amount of charter requests passing through its system, beating its previous record which was set in 2018.
Overall, Avinode reports more than 4,500 trips requested through its system on March 12, 2020, which resulted in requests for over 45,000 aircraft sent. That represented a 96% increase in flight requests compared with the same day last year.
The biggest increase in percentage terms, the firm says, came from transatlantic flight requests. Flights originating in Europe and heading to the US and Canada jumped by 1,400%, with requests for flights from the US and Canada to Europe jumping 200%.
The company also recorded a spike in demand for internal flights operating within the US.
“We saw record demand in the Avinode marketplace yesterday, with over 4,500 trips requested,” Harry Clark, Avinode’s head of insight and analytics told Corporate Jet Investor. “This beat the previous high, recorded during the Russian World Cup in 2018. Demand was up globally, but particularly on transatlantic routes and internally within the US.”
Despite the big spike in requests, other industry players are warning that the demand is temporary and will not mask an expected overall decline in activity.
Yesterday we reported that the industry could lose up to $45m in charter revenue per month during President Trump’s ban.
Adam Twidell, CEO and founder of PrivateFly is one of the people cautioning that the spike in demand is only temporary. “There’s an upside to this and a downside. Probably overall, it’s going to be down,” he told Corporate Jet Investor yesterday.
