Global business jet activity hit a new all-time record in 2025 at 3.88 million departures, 34% above pre-pandemic levels. The top operator flies 12% of all global business jet trips. The market structure is being redefined in real time. And outside of trade press, the category barely exists in mainstream communications strategy.
I have been around private aviation for over a decade. 5W designed and executed the launch of JetSmarter — the app that, for a moment, rewrote how private aviation was accessed. I have watched the category grow from a single-digit slice of luxury communications into something much larger. Our new Haute Jets Wealth Migration Report puts numbers on how large.
Some of those numbers:
● 3.88 million global business jet departures in 2025 — an all-time record, 34% above 2019.
● 2.63 million US departures — roughly 69% of global activity.
● +75.5% growth in fractional ownership departures since 2019 — the fastest-growing segment of any luxury category I can name.
● +70% growth in ultra-long-range jet activity since 2019.
● Latin America +11% in 2025 — the second-fastest regional growth globally.
On market structure, per Mordor Intelligence:
● The business aviation services market was worth $59.6 billion in 2025.
● Projected to reach $106 billion by 2031.
● 51.88% of 2025 revenue is from charter services.
● Fractional ownership posts 12.18% CAGR through 2031.
● NetJets flies nearly 12% of all global business jet trips by itself.
● Flexjet signed a $7 billion Embraer order in February 2025 — one of the largest fleet commitments on record.
Why private aviation became a communications category
For years, private aviation was treated as an adjunct to luxury marketing. It was the aspirational image in a lifestyle magazine. It was the backdrop for a spokesperson’s photo. It was not a destination category with its own communications strategy.
That is no longer tenable. Three million US departures annually is a scale that generates its own media, its own audiences, its own issues, and its own narrative dynamics.
Consider what the communications category now has to address:
Sustainability. The Knight Frank Wealth Report 2025 found that 14% of UHNWIs say they intend to reduce private jet use. Yet actual usage is at record levels. That gap is a communications issue for every operator, every HNWI spokesperson, and every destination that depends on private arrivals. Operators that cannot articulate a credible Sustainable Aviation Fuel roadmap will lose corporate charter business. Individuals flying privately need to know how to discuss it.
Access narratives. Charter, fractional, and subscription models — not ownership — now drive the majority of market activity. The communications task is to explain this structure credibly to a public that still assumes private aviation means individual aircraft owned by single individuals. The inaccurate framing is persistent and has policy implications.
Economic narratives. Private aviation is not discretionary for many of its users. It is a time-efficiency decision for executives running global teams. VistaJet reported that corporate RFPs surged three-fold in H1 2025. That is not a luxury story — it is a business productivity story. Framing it correctly changes the public conversation.
Geographic narratives. The private aviation route map is the wealth migration map. London–Dubai is a top 10 global corridor because the wealthy are moving from London to Dubai. New York–Miami dominates because wealth is moving to Florida. Private aviation operators that tell the geographic story well become beneficiaries of the broader migration narrative.
What this means for PR firms
Firms serving private aviation clients — operators, fractional companies, jet card programs, subscription services, charter brokers, FBOs, aircraft management firms — should build specialized teams around the category. Generalist luxury coverage is not enough. The regulatory, sustainability, access, and geographic narratives require actual domain knowledge.
Firms not currently in the private aviation sector should consider it. The category is growing at double-digit CAGR through 2031. The M&A activity is active. The fleet investment is historic (Flexjet alone ordered $7B of Embraers in one 2025 transaction). Every category inflection is a PR opportunity.
And firms serving wealthy individual clients should recognize that private aviation has become a core part of the HNW identity. The Knight Frank Next Generation Survey found private jets at the top of the aspirational purchase list for wealthy 18–35 year-olds. This is not going away. It is becoming generational.
Read the report
The private aviation sections of The Haute Jets Wealth Migration Report cover flight volume, route corridors, airport activity, market concentration, the economics of ownership, fractional vs charter vs subscription, SAF, the top operators, and the overlay between private aviation routes and wealth migration corridors. All of it is linked to source material. Free, no registration.
If you work in luxury PR and private aviation is not already a core category for your agency, change that in 2026.
Ronn Torossian is Founder and Chairman of 5W Public Relations. 5W designed the launch marketing for JetSmarter, the private aviation platform that pioneered app-based access to private flight.
