Trends
Most sectors of GA for which data are available have experienced growth in aircraft numbers and hours flown over the last two decades. The lighter end of the GA spectrum: microlights, amateur built, and airships and balloons, have in particular shown strong growth, although the last of these activities was severely curtailed during the foot-and-mouth outbreak in 2001, when access to farmland was denied . After strong growth in the late 1980s, traditional flying has shown a slight decline recently, reflecting a move amongst recreational flyers towards microlight aircraft, and increased numbers of foreign-registered aircraft. Recreational helicopter usage has grown primarily due to the introduction of smaller and cheaper aircraft. Glider activity has remained relatively static, although there has been a gradual increase in the number of self-launching motor gliders.
Business aviation has shown strong growth, although the numbers of aircraft on the UK register have declined. This reflects a shift away from turboprop aircraft towards foreign-registered business jets based in the UK, which are estimated to be growing in numbers. However, twin piston-engined aircraft numbers have declined significantly, reflecting pressures on the light air-taxi segment from increasingly flexible and cheaper scheduled services, and a more sophisticated corporate charter business. The amount of flight training conducted by UK schools has declined, largely at the hands of competition from foreign schools, which benefit from lower costs and better weather.
Since 1990 the total number of hours flown annually by the GA sector has remained in the range 1.25–1.35 million, the dominant sector being traditional GA flying, which accounts for 0.6 million per year. An overall increase in aircraft numbers combined with nil growth in hours flown has brought the annual average utilisation per aircraft down from 157 hours in 1984 to 103 hours in 2002. The decline in asset utilisation has led to speculation that the economic health of the GA industry is weakening, though the lack of data on profitability makes this difficult to confirm.
Read more about this topic: General Aviation In The United Kingdom
Famous quotes containing the word trends:
“Thanks to recent trends in the theory of knowledge, history is now better aware of its own worth and unassailability than it formerly was. It is precisely in its inexact character, in the fact that it can never be normative and does not have to be, that its security lies.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“A point has been reached where the peoples of the Americas must take cognizance of growing ill-will, of marked trends toward aggression, of increasing armaments, of shortening tempers—a situation which has in it many of the elements that lead to the tragedy of general war.... Peace is threatened by those who seek selfish power.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“Power-worship blurs political judgement because it leads, almost unavoidably, to the belief that present trends will continue. Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)