LunaJets, the private jet charter division of Luna Aviation Group, has announced that its annual revenue for 2021 largely exceeded $100m for the first time in its history. This represents a 65% growth in flight volume over 2020, and 40% over 2019. The number of flights reached almost 8,000 (including empty legs).
“Considering how highly volatile the market has been since the beginning of the pandemic and a slow start to the year, these figures, which are well above the rest of the market, confirm our position as the European market leader,” said Guillaume Launay, director of sales. “We beat our record of new clients with over 1,100 in 2021, with an unprecedented level of clients switching supplier, and newcomers into the industry. Most of these are leisure clients, which this year represent nearly 70% of our activity, compared to around 50% in 2019, whereas our business clients have dramatically reduced their flight hours.”
The aviation market in 2021
The company said that from April 2021, the business aviation market experienced a dramatic shift from an oversupply to an undersupply, fuelled by “a drastic improvement of the sanitary situation until mid-November, a lack of commercial flight routes and a huge increase in wealth resulting from bullish stock markets”.
“This recent golden age for our industry is an opportunity to accelerate our global development,” said Eymeric Segard, CEO of LunaJets. “We also greatly benefited from the strong demand pressures on 25h-card providers and jet sharing programmes, which could not grow fast enough to absorb this unprecedented level of clients flying on their own fleet. Therefore, some of these clients switched to our services, offering unlimited direct access to a much wider fleet of recent aircraft worldwide. I am delighted with our performance but not fooled by these exceptional circumstances, which feel like it did in 2007 when founding LunaJets, with signs of alarming over-excitement. For example, we are seeing rates-per-hour on large-cabin aircraft category increasing and availability dramatically reducing.”
LunaJets started to accept Crypto payments, offered carbon offsetting programmes and was named as ‘Best SME Employer’ in Switzerland for the fourth year in a row by the Swiss business magazine Bilan.
“The group doubled its IT and digital investments in 2021 and will continue in 2022 to increase our gap with the competition,” said José Ferreiro, head of IT and digital. “Next year, we will offer to our clients the most advanced IT and digital tools of our industry.”
Forecast for 2022
After opening new offices in London (UK) in 2019, Paris (France) in 2020 and Monaco in 2021, Lunajets plans to expand to Riga (Latvia), Moscow (Russia) and Dubai (UAE) in 2022.
“Our new offices and inherent synergies within the group – private jet charter, group charter, cargo, sales and acquisitions – have created an ecosystem where we cover all sectors of our industry to deliver the same independent and reliable service as LunaJets has done for over 15 years,” said Alain Leboursier, managing director. “This has created a unique position where we are building deeper business relationships with our clients (and suppliers), being able to service all their aviation needs as well as rapidly gaining new clients in these markets.”
LunaJets added that despite what it called “clear signs of a bubble in the industry”, it remains confident of continuing to gain market share. The company is again targeting 20-30% growth for 2022, as long as there are no geopolitical, financial or sanitary shocks.
