Seefeld Group and JIQ Launch UtilizationEx Global Survey on Business Aircraft Utilization at NBAA-BACE 2026
Why It MattersPairing flight records with stated operator intentions signals that utilization forecasting in business aviation is moving beyond hours-flown counts toward models that include owner behavior and decision drivers.
What happened
Seefeld Group and JIQ, the market intelligence platform of JETNET, announced the launch of UtilizationEx on October 19, 2026, at NBAA-BACE in Las Vegas, Nevada, where JETNET is exhibiting at Booth #3030. UtilizationEx is a new global Seefeld Group survey. It combines JIQ flight activity intelligence, which draws on JETNET's WINGX data, with operator insights into sentiment, intentions and decision-making. The stated aim is to better understand the drivers of business aircraft utilization and to forecast future demand.
Data collection for the inaugural study is planned for Q1 2027, with results expected in Q2 2027 and available by subscription. The survey will examine business aviation demand and operating drivers including mission requirements, aircraft availability, maintenance, training, operating economics, fleet composition, lifecycle considerations and owner priorities and attitudes. Quantitative findings will be segmented and trended by aircraft category, geography, manufacturer and fleet size.
Charles Porteous, President of Seefeld Group, said flight activity data shows what operators were able to fly but not what they were thinking or what influenced their behavior, and that understanding those drivers is essential to interpreting utilization correctly and improving forecasts of future flying demand. Richard Koe, Chief Market Analyst at JETNET Group, said JIQ's flight activity analysis provides detailed visibility into how business aircraft activity is changing around the world, and that UtilizationEx adds the operator perspective needed to explain those movements.
UtilizationEx is a Seefeld Group research initiative, developed and led by Seefeld in partnership with marketing research firm Ad Hoc Research.
Industry impact & what to watch
Business aviation has no shortage of flight tracking data; the harder question is why activity moves. Flight records capture departures, hours and routes, but a drop in flying can reflect weak demand, an aircraft sitting in maintenance, a crew or training constraint, or an owner deliberately holding back. Those causes call for very different forecasts, and the activity record alone cannot separate them. A survey layered on top of that record is an attempt to attach a reason to each movement.
The segmentation promised here is what would make that useful. Cuts by aircraft category, geography, manufacturer and fleet size mirror how the market is actually priced and financed: a large-cabin fleet in one region and a light-jet fleet in another respond to different pressures. If the findings are trended over successive editions, they would give lenders, lessors, OEMs and service providers a way to test their own utilization assumptions against stated operator intent rather than against historical hours alone.
The milestones are fixed in time: fieldwork in Q1 2027 and first results in Q2 2027. Until then the value of the product rests on the methodology and on how well the operator sample covers the segments it intends to report on.
