NetJets Sees Business Booming as Market Surges
NetJets, the world’s largest private aviation company and a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary, reported surging business conditions in 2022 as demand for private aviation reached levels the company had not previously experienced. The pandemic-era surge in private jet demand — driven by new customers seeking alternatives to commercial aviation during COVID-19 restrictions — proved more durable than many in the industry had predicted, with a significant percentage of first-time private aviation customers continuing to use fractional and charter services well into the post-pandemic environment.
NetJets CEO Adam Johnson described market conditions as transformative, noting that the company’s owner base had grown substantially and that the profile of new customers had shifted — younger buyers, more women, and buyers from sectors not traditionally associated with fractional ownership were entering the market. The company also highlighted geographic expansion, with NetJets Europe reporting particularly strong growth as European business aviation demand recovered more robustly than anticipated.
Exploring the Impact of the Market Surge on NetJets’ Bottom Line
What Drove the Business Aviation Boom
The business aviation market’s trajectory since 2020 defied almost every pre-pandemic forecast. When COVID-19 closed commercial aviation in spring 2020, charter operators braced for catastrophic demand destruction. Instead, the opposite occurred: commercial aviation’s collapse drove high-net-worth individuals toward private aviation as the only way to travel safely and reliably during the pandemic. Many experienced their first private jet flight during this period. A substantial percentage liked what they found.
The structural attractiveness of private aviation — no airport queues, no exposure to crowds, no schedule dependency, the ability to fly to smaller airports closer to final destinations — became viscerally apparent to a new customer base that had previously accepted commercial aviation’s inconveniences as unavoidable. Customer acquisition costs for the private aviation industry dropped dramatically as customers were actively seeking out services rather than needing to be persuaded.
NetJets specifically benefited from its fractional ownership model, which provides more cost predictability and scheduling priority than charter, at the cost of a larger upfront commitment. Fractional shares in NetJets aircraft start at 1/16th of a specific type, providing 50 hours of annual flight time. The company operates one of the most diverse and large fleets of any operator globally — Cessna Citation, Bombardier Challenger and Global, and Gulfstream aircraft across multiple categories — enabling it to match customers to appropriate aircraft for each mission.
Fleet Expansion Challenges
The demand surge created an acute supply challenge. Business jet manufacturers — Gulfstream, Bombardier, Cessna/Textron, Dassault — have finite production capacity that cannot be rapidly scaled. New aircraft production involves extensive supply chains, skilled labor, and certification processes that limit how quickly output can increase. NetJets, which places large orders that give it significant manufacturing priority, still faced order lead times extending years into the future for its preferred aircraft types.
The used aircraft market, which NetJets does not typically rely on for fleet management, was simultaneously being stripped of available inventory by the broader market surge. Pre-owned business jet inventories fell to historically low levels — at the trough in 2021 and 2022, available for-sale inventory of popular types like the Gulfstream G450/G550 and Bombardier Global 5000/6000 fell below 2% of the total fleet, compared to historical norms of 8–12%. Prices rose dramatically in response.
New Customer Demographics and Long-Term Implications
The demographic shift in business aviation customers has implications that extend beyond the current demand cycle. The traditional fractional and charter customer was overwhelmingly male, over 50, and concentrated in finance, real estate, and energy. The pandemic-era cohort of new customers is younger, more diverse, and drawn from technology, media, and entrepreneurial sectors that were less represented in pre-2020 business aviation usage.
Whether these customers remain loyal to private aviation through market cycles — as fuel prices rise, economic conditions tighten, and commercial aviation becomes more reliable again — is the central question for the industry’s long-term outlook. Early data from NetJets and other major operators suggested that retention among pandemic-era first-time users was running well above historical norms for new customer cohorts, though the full picture would only become clear as the post-pandemic normalization advanced.
NetJets’ Position in the Competitive Landscape
NetJets competes in the fractional ownership segment against Flexjet (owned by Directional Aviation) and Wheels Up (which operates a hybrid membership/charter model). The competitive dynamics among these players intensified as the market expanded: Wheels Up went public via SPAC in 2021, Flexjet pursued a similar public market transaction, and all three companies invested heavily in fleet expansion, customer experience, and technology platforms. NetJets’ Berkshire Hathaway backing provides financial stability that pure-play public companies and private equity-owned competitors cannot easily match — an advantage that becomes particularly visible during market downturns, when financially stressed operators reduce service quality or exit the market.
