Flight Friday: Gulfstream G700 Enters Service, Boosting Fleet Numbers

With MEBAA wrapping up in Dubai, this week’s Flight Friday focuses on flights of large business jets by European and Middle Eastern operators.

Discounting the airliners that are used as business jets, the large jet business sector is formed by three manufacturers. Bombardier mainly with their suite of Global Express’ aircraft; Dassault Aviation with the Falcon 2000’s, 6X and 7X/8X; and Gulfstream, which now includes the recently introduced G700 into service.

Combined overall utilization is up almost 6% in November 2024 when compared to November 2019 for this collection of aircraft. The global number for this business aircraft segment is over 15%, so the utilization of this segment has not kept pace with the global average.

Taking each manufacturer in turn, Bombardier flights have increased by 10% since 201. This has been helped by an increase of in-service fleet, predominantly Global 6500 and 7500’s, of 18%.

Dassault Aviation utilization has dropped by almost 3% since 2019 levels. The in-service fleet dropped by a few aircraft, but the makeup of the Dassault fleet has changed with increased 6X and 8X aircraft making up for the removal of some of the legacy aircraft.

Gulfstream utilization is up almost 8% on 2019 levels. The in-service Gulfstream fleet has grown by around 50 aircraft, which helps move the utilization numbers up. In April 2024, Qatar Executive took delivery of the first G700, and now operate four of the type.

Generally, business aviation utilization post-pandemic has remained strong, with new annual benchmarks being created within the sector.

This data was put together using Aviation Week’s Tracked Aircraft Utilization tool.