Behind the scenes of glamour: A systematic literature review of the business aviation sector

ABSTRACT

Unlike the other air transport business models, air cargo and business aviation proved resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic setting the fundamentals for further growth in the post-pandemic business environment. In contrast to air cargo, however, business aviation is relatively under-researched. On these grounds, this paper is of interest as it examines the available academic contributions on business aviation using a systematic literature review methodology. Based on Scopus, Transportation Research International Documentation (TRID) and Web of Science databases and after applying specific inclusion criteria, 260 papers were selected for further analysis. We performed a descriptive analysis to identify the basic characteristics of the papers and a content analysis with VOSviewer software to comprehend deeply the arguments that have been investigated so far. We found that the first paper was published in 1966 and until 2021 there is a steady but slow increase in the scientific research mainly in four disciplines Applied Sciences (70.00%), Economic and Social Sciences (18.46%), Natural Sciences (9.23%) and Health Sciences (2.31%). There are 637 researchers working in affiliations located in 37 countries that have studied business aviation-related issues. Nevertheless, they have formed small networks within their country or affiliation's boundaries. United States is the country that leads the research on business aviation in terms of publications and unique researchers' affiliations while University of Quebec from Canada is the leading affiliation with the highest number of publications. The content analysis showed that business aviation research is limited to a few topics among which engineering management aspects have mostly been explored. Overall, the results show that much room exists for future research on business aviation especially with respect to economics and business management issues, environmental impacts, and health-related topics.