Bouncing back

Life has finally corroborated the optimism of experts about a permanent recovery of the Russian business aviation market. Although 2011 was a difficult year for the sector, its results demonstrated that the market had stabilized.

One of the two key indicators of business aviation market growth in Russia is historically the number of aircraft movements. Although no such statistics exist, the figure can be deduced with the help of expert estimates. Market players concur that the frequency of business flights in Russia began to grow last year, although at a slower pace than it had been growing prior to the economic crisis. According to Leonid Shcherbakov, chief inspector of the Aerotrans, Russian provider of flight dispatch services, last year there were more than 140,000 business aircraft movements in Russia. The growth had begun in 2010, when the number of business aviation flights exceeded that performed in 2006 and 2009; the frequency of flights further grew in 2011, at a pace not seen since 2006.

Evgeny Bakhtin, president of Avcom-D Group which manages the business aviation centre at Moscow’s Domode­dovo airport, cites less optimistic figures. According to him, the market continued to revive slowly throughout 2011 at a 12% growth rate. Bakhtin explains the slow but sure growth rate by the overall moderate growth of the Russian economy, the increase in global energy prices, the growing welfare of the Russian population, and the resultant increase of paying demand for business aviation operations.