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WINGX reported on Thursday that the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics caused a significant increase in business jet activity across Northern Italy.
A total of 884 departures were recorded during the Olympic period, representing an almost 40% increase in activity when compared to similar timeframes. WINGX states that both the Summer and Winter Olympics reliably produce a meaningful uplift in business aviation demand at host city airports. Even the pandemic-delayed Tokyo 2020 Summer Games had a 27% increase in business jet flights, which is the lowest increase in the most recent four Olympics in WINGX's records.
The Milan-Cortina Winter Games had a higher surge than the Tokyo 2020 Summer Games and the Paris 2024 Games, which had an 34% increase in activity. Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics had the highest surge in the dataset at 50%. The large increase was caused by regulatory controls that suppressed baseline traffic, which made the small number of Olympic flights appear more dramatic compared to the smaller number of flights overall.
"The Milan-Cortina Olympics delivered a clear and measurable boost to Italian bizjet traffic, continuing a pattern we see at almost every marquee sporting event," said WINGX analyst Nick Koscinski. "With global flights up 3.8% year-to-date and high- profile events consistently elevating traffic levels, 2026 is meeting our expectations of modest single-digit growth."
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Globally, business jet traffic is 3.8% ahead of the same period in 2025, with 536,000 flights so far. The increase is a slight acceleration from the 3.4% growth seen from 2024 to 2025. February business jet activity increased 5.6% year over year. Regionally, North America has a 3.4% increase in activity year-to-date with 382,000 flights. Europe has flown over 64,000 sectors and has seen 3% increase in activity. South America saw 50,000 departures, up 9.5% compared to last year. Africa had a 6.5% increase in business jet activity with 6,200 flights.