Charter, card, share, own
What an hour in the air costs
Four ways to fly privately, and a single number of hours a year that decides which one is not a mistake.
Private aviation sells four products that look like one. On demand charter, a prepaid card of hours, a fractional share and whole ownership. They cost radically different amounts per hour and the right answer is decided almost entirely by how many hours a year you actually fly, which is a number most people overestimate by half.
On demand charter
You book an aircraft for a trip through a broker or an operator. No commitment, full flexibility about size, and the price is whatever the market is that week, which in the Mediterranean in August is a great deal more than in November. Under about fifty hours a year this is almost always the correct answer.
The jet card
You prepay for a block of hours on a category of aircraft at a fixed hourly rate, with guaranteed availability and a set callout time. It removes price volatility and the search, it costs perhaps ten to twenty per cent more per hour than sharp charter, and it suits somebody flying fifty to a hundred and fifty hours a year on predictable routes.
Fractional
You buy a share of a specific aircraft in a managed fleet, pay a monthly management fee and an occupied hourly rate, and get a guaranteed aircraft with short notice. It makes sense above about a hundred and fifty hours and it involves a capital commitment and a residual value at the end of the term, which is a market risk.
Whole ownership
Your aircraft, your crew, your maintenance programme, your hangar. It makes financial sense above roughly three hundred to four hundred hours a year, and people buy below that for reasons that are about control and availability rather than cost. Owners of large yachts frequently end up here, because the two assets have the same logic: when you need it, you need it now.
The costs that are not the hourly rate
- Positioning: the aircraft has to get to you and get home, and on a one way trip you may pay for both.
- Airport and handling fees, which at Nice in August are not small.
- Overnight and crew duty costs if the aircraft waits for you.
- De-icing, peak day surcharges, and the difference between a quoted and a final invoice.
Use it now
Aircraft Selector
Which aircraft, which airport, and how long from the apron to the passerelle.
