Private plane arrivals for inauguration projected to be down from 2009

Despite President-elect Donald Trump’s penchant for private planes, his inauguration festivities are expected to draw less private jet traffic into Washington than President Obama’s swearing in.

Private jet booking platform Stratajet has seen lower than expected searches for planes in and out of Washington airports surrounding the Jan. 20 presidential inauguration. Stratajet’s observations back the capital’s Dulles Airport Operations, which has said that a minimum of 400 planes will be staying over this weekend, a forecast that also suggests fewer flights than 2009’s numbers.

Flight plans
During the 2009 inauguration, almost 700 private planes landed in Washington, even as the nation was in the midst of a recession. This broke the record previously held during President Bush’s inauguration in 2004 during which 300 private planes parked at Dulles.

In comparison to 2009, Mr. Obama’s second term inauguration drew closer to 300 jets.

Image courtesy of Stratajet

Stratajet, which launched this October in the United States (see story), has seen healthy traffic since its debut, growing 40 percent each month, with 30,000 real-time searches completed. It attributes this underwhelming number of searches for this weekend to Mr. Trump’s base, which is more concentrated in those with household incomes under $100,000.

Judging from this most recent U.S. presidential election, the affluent are not as easily pegged to a particular political mindset today. Since George W. Bush’s win in 2004, Republicans are winning affluents' votes by less points, with those with household incomes higher than $200,000 even shifting support to Democrats in some recent elections (see story).

“The 400 private jets arriving into the capital this weekend demonstrate that there is still an appeal to be at the heart of the inauguration ball and gala scene,” said Jonny Nicol, founder/CEO of Stratajet, in a statement. “This number is still a considerable logistical challenge for the airports and FBOs but it is interesting to note that there will be fewer aircraft than eight years ago and how this relates to searches for flights to Washington D.C. conducted via our automated booking platform.”