U.S. Needs Business Aviation for Economic Growth

Changing trends in commercial aviation have shown that over the past six years, there has been a drop in scheduled domestic flights to the tune of almost 9% per year in the largest hub airports in the U.S. with smaller airports losing 21% of domestic activity, according to a report by MIT’s International Center for Air Transportation.

The blame for this significant decrease in activity is largely attributed to the troubled economy and vastly fluctuating fuel prices, forcing operators to adjust capacity for a higher yield per flight and even removing direct flights to smaller airports, thus creating an impact upon small and medium-sized communities, in rural America, for example, in turn greatly affecting the service levels to these areas.

With public transport at a minimum in rural areas, and the demands upon business travellers increases with the economic crisis, there has never been a more critical time for business aviation to provide business travellers with the means to act fast in opportunistic situations.

The U.S. has invested billions in ensuring a safe, reliable and efficient air transport infrastructure and this is essential for the facilitation of the continued operation of airline travel for commercial airlines, business and recreational aircraft to maintain a robust infrastructure and to keep the skies busy and keep the economy growing.

Indeed, rural America encourages companies to bring jobs to the communities and the creation of effective transportation is welcomed with open arms.  The need for strong connections grows and, currently, airlines serve only 10% of the nation’s airports between less than 50 locations country-wide.

The authors of the report do not expect the situation to improve in the near future with commercial airlines and, with the businesses that fly their executives to where the opportunities lie, it is clear that business aviation is an area of the industry that will experience the growth and productivity that will ultimately benefit the nation’s economy.