In a market constructed on speed, efficiency, and precision, we are failing. Aviation infrastructure today is no less than broken, and the ripples of that dysfunction reach from the man on the street flying commercially to the high-end executive relying on business aviation to get things done.
Take the chief executive of Starbucks, for example, who reportedly commutes several times a week on a private jet. It may appear excessive in many ways and even counter to greater sustainability narratives, but truthfully, I understand very well why he does it – and I’d bet anyone in his shoes would do the same.
Air travel is so riddled with delays, inefficiencies, and unpredictability that private aviation is the only way to ensure a top executive can commute consistently and reliably. They would like Starbucks to depend on commercial airlines to do the job. But let’s be realistic here: with air travel these days, their CEO would never show up to half his meetings if he flew commercial.
This situation speaks to a more significant issue: the deteriorating relationship between general aviation, business aviation, and the commercial airline industry. We have moved from being a complementary sector designed to working in tandem to serve the entire spectrum of air travelers and operating almost at odds. This infrastructure, designed to accommodate both, is ancient and overcrowded, with friction forcing decisions on the business aviation community that, on the surface at least, seem out of step with its objectives, such as sustainability.
Let’s be clear: Business aviation’s optics would lead one to believe it isn’t a luxury. It’s an essential tool for executives and companies operating in a global marketplace where time is money, and delays can cost more than a bad press headline. Aviation needs to be green, and we at Icarus Jet will be part of that solution. However, until our aviation infrastructure gets fixed, companies will have little choice but to send their leaders around using private jets. It is the only way, at the moment, to guarantee they can show up on time and ready to work.
A vicious circle
One of the biggest challenges is insufficient investment in the modernization of the air traffic control system, upgrading of runways, and building additional capacity at airports. The same challenges beset commercial airlines, though. The difference is that airlines have grown impatient over the perception that general aviation is either hogging resources or taking up too much space at busy airports. At the same time, business aviation operators feel their hands are tied when, quite frankly, private aviation is all but the only available solution for systemic delays.
It is, in fact, a vicious circle. Both sectors are losing, but instead of cooperation, we have a growing hostility. And that divide serves neither.
However, as if the tension between the two was not enough, private aviation is feeling the squeeze due to higher taxes and regulatory pressures across the globe, especially in Europe. Numerous countries in the frame of broader environmental programs have imposed increasing taxes on private jet travel. Such a tendency, though understandable from the policy perspective, means another layer of cost and complexity added to business aviation. Moreover, slot availability is increasingly limited at major airports, while ground time for private jets is diminishing in popular destinations. From Paris to London to Geneva, it’s a scramble for business aviation operators to land the rights to touch down where they need, with private jets frequently pushed to secondary airports or forced to circle the airport longer and wait for landing. In turn, this is making it harder for private aviation to meet the needs of those businesses.
Tough decisions have to be made at companies on how—and where—they want to operate. The result of such a lack of coordination or planning only degrades the already fractured relationship between general aviation and commercial airlines, as both are fighting for their share of meager resources instead of working in harmony to solve the root problems.
How long will this go on before we finally have some real systemic change? The bottom line is that if we want to repair the broken relationship between general aviation and commercial airlines and then stride on to a truly sustainable aviation future, the first order of business must be to deal with those infrastructure concerns that are driving businesses like Starbucks to make decisions which superficially at least would seem to run counter to the aim of sustainability.
We keep spiraling further into dysfunction without significant investment in modernizing our airports and airspace and without substantial collaboration across all aviation sectors. Meanwhile, Starbucks’ CEO will still be on his private jet, flying past all those stuck in some terminal, while the lucky ones wonder when their delayed flight will ever take off.
