Dan Robles has written a very interesting post on Plane Conversations about using data from Google Think Insights to determine that more and more people are searching the Internet on terms such as private jet, jet charter, jet charter cost, VIP travel etc. Specifically, here is the data that Dan found from Google Think Insights:
Plus these related searches:
(Note: All the data is from January 2008 and December 2011 and for the USA)
So what does this tell us about the state of the private jet or business jet market along with the economy? One way to look at things is that people just happen to be using the internet more to find information about renting private jets. On the other hand, the data could also suggest that more people are also interested in renting private jets as well because after all, there are plenty of good reasons to do so given the state of commercial aviation (e.g. delays, security hassles, lack of flying options to smaller markets etc.).
For his part, Dan noted that Social Flights has long suggested that there are opportunities to increase private charter shuttle services between key locations as well as for companies to share private aircraft scheduled to fly between regions. He also concluded that search term trends are important because they can indicate the intentions of the market as well as new opportunities to serve it.
At the very least, the Google data does look interesting and bodes well for the private jet market in the USA.