Charter Operator Overview – Charter Report 2022

As of the end of June 2022, 17 charter operators with more than five business jets for charter in Asia-Pacific operated a total of 126 charter aircraft, accounting for 37% of the whole charter fleet in Asia-Pacific. Among them, Phenix Jet had the largest charter fleet with 13 business jets available for charter, followed closely by Australian Corporate Jet Centres (ACJC) with 12. TAG Aviation is in third place with 11 charter aircraft.

Business aviation in Asia-Pacific has not seen much growth in the past two years. Despite the upward trend in the total number of charter jets, the charter market in some sub-regions, such as Greater China, has declined significantly.

However, some charter operators were still able to expand their charter fleets. Phenix Jet increased its charter fleet by seven aircraft – mainly Long Range models, and moved up seven spots to become the largest business jet charter operator in Asia-Pacific. Seletar Jet and TAG Aviation also saw significant growth in their charter fleets, increasing by four aircraft each.

Amongst the top 17 operators, seven use Long Range aircraft as their main charter models and two use Large models for the majority of their operations in Asia-Pacific. Phenix Jet and TAG Aviation have the largest number of Long Range aircraft in their fleets with 10 each, whilst Club One Air is the biggest Large aircraft operator with five in its fleet.

Five of the 17 top operators use Bombardier aircraft as their main charter aircraft, whilst three operate Gulfstreams as their primary charter aircraft OEM. Three charter operators mainly operate Textron aircraft for charter, whilst a further two mostly operate Dassault aircraft, and one mostly operates Embraer aircraft. Lily Jet has the most Bombardier aircraft with seven, whilst the operator with the most Dassault aircraft is Club One Air with five. ACJC operates both the largest number of Embraer and Textron aircraft, and the operator with the most Gulfstream aircraft is Deer Jet.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the demand for charter flights in Australia has increased significantly as there were few regular transport options left for travelers. As a result, in 2022 Australia had the largest charter fleet in Asia-Pacific with 81 business aircraft available for charter, which was an increase of 15 aircraft when compared to 2020. ACJC had the largest number of charter jets among all operators in the country with 12. ExecuJet came in second with seven aircraft available for charter.

While the impact of policies affecting the charter market appears to be positive, charter operators in Greater China have seen an overall decline in the number of aircraft over the past two years. As the COVID-19 pandemic brought uncertainty to the economy and corporations were required to deleverage their debt, many owners and operators chose to dispose of their aircraft. Deer Jet’s charter fleet has decreased by two aircraft over the past two years, but it was still among the top four charter operators in the Asia-Pacific and the largest operator in Greater China. Sino Jet saw the largest reduction of all operators in the Asia-Pacific, with a decrease of six aircraft. Lily Jet jumped up four spots in the ranking after adding three aircraft.

Club One Air, with eight jets available for charter, was the largest charter operator in India in 2022. In second place was Reliance Commercial Dealers, a Reliance Group company, which had seven aircraft available for charter.

Seletar Jet was the largest charter operator in Singapore in 2022 with nine aircraft available for charter, an increase of four from 2020. Pacific Flight Services was in second place with five charter aircraft.