Buying a Private Jet, or Chartering

28 August 2026

The question arrives in almost the same words every time. Someone has been chartering for a few years, the invoices have become a line item rather than an event, and they want to know whether it is time to buy. It is a good question, and it has a bad answer in most of what is written about it: a single number, quoted with confidence, that turns out to be someone's marketing.

We looked at what the trade body actually says, and at what we can measure ourselves.

The threshold nobody disputes

The National Business Aviation Association sets out three bands, and they are the closest thing to a neutral answer that exists:

Annual flight hours	What usually makes sense
Around 50 hours or less	Charter. Usage-based, no capital tied up.
50 to 100 hours	Fractional ownership. Capital for a share, plus monthly fees and an hourly rate.
Around 150 hours	Whole ownership becomes financially more cost-effective than the alternatives.

The NBAA is careful about that last figure, and so are we: it calls 150 hours the point where ownership is generally the tipping point, and adds that this sometimes depends on the region. It is a starting point for a conversation, not the end of one.

What the hourly rate hides

Most comparisons stop at a rate per hour. That is where they go wrong, because the rate is not a constant. We analysed 240 published European route prices from a single broker, so the methodology stays the same across the sample. The result:

Under 45 minutes of flight time, the median works out at roughly 18,900 EUR per hour. Over two hours, it falls to about 5,700 EUR per hour. Same aircraft classes, same broker, same price list. The short hop is not a little more expensive per hour. It is more than three times more expensive.

This matters for the ownership question in a way that is easy to miss. A flight profile made of many short sectors reaches the economic case for ownership much earlier than the hour count alone suggests, because those are precisely the hours charter prices worst.

The costs that do not appear in a charter invoice

Aircraft cost data has an industry standard, and it is worth naming: Conklin & de Decker, now part of JSSI, has published operating cost data since the 1970s and splits it the way an owner actually experiences it. Variable costs move with the hours flown: fuel, maintenance, landing and parking. Fixed costs do not: crew, hangar, insurance, services.

The fixed side is the part that surprises people. It runs whether the aircraft flies 50 hours or 500. A crew is employed, a hangar is leased, an insurance premium is paid, and an aircraft that sits still still costs money every month. That asymmetry is the whole reason the thresholds above exist.

The tax nobody quotes you

There is a cost item that appears in almost no comparison and that we see on real invoices. Since 1 March 2025 France levies a passenger tax on business jet departures, set out in Article L. 422-22 of the French code and published on Légifrance. For a jet-engined business aircraft it is 420 EUR per passenger to a European destination, 1,015 EUR to an intermediate one and 2,100 EUR to a distant one.

Eight passengers leaving Nice for a European destination therefore carry 3,360 EUR of French passenger tax before the aircraft has moved. Against a published Nice to Geneva midsize price of 11,700 EUR, that is roughly a 29 per cent surcharge. It applies to commercial operators; non-commercial operations, cargo, ambulance flights and technical stops are outside it. The distance band is set by the distance from Paris to the capital of the destination country, not by the route actually flown.

An owner operating privately is treated differently from a commercial charter. That is not a reason to buy an aircraft. It is a reason to have the tax position modelled before anyone signs anything.

What we tell clients

Three things, in this order.

Count the hours honestly, and count the sectors. Not the hours you would like to fly. The hours you flew last year, and how many of them were under an hour.

Model the fixed side first. Crew, hangar, insurance and management are the floor. If that floor is uncomfortable at zero hours flown, the rest of the arithmetic will not rescue it.

Ask what the alternative actually costs, with the taxes in it. A charter quote and an ownership model are only comparable once both carry the same items. Most published comparisons quietly leave the taxes out of one side.

We do not sell aircraft and we take no commission from operators, which is the only reason this article can be written this way. When a client asks us to look at the question, we build the comparison on their own flight log and their own tax position, and we say plainly when the answer is that they should keep chartering. It often is.

If you would like that comparison made, speak to a partner. We also keep three detailed cost pages on the charter side, covering private travel and aviation in general.

Back to the Journal

Questions we are asked

Straight answers.

At how many flight hours a year does owning a jet make sense?

The National Business Aviation Association puts the tipping point at around 150 hours a year, with charter making sense up to about 50 hours and fractional ownership between 50 and 100. The NBAA itself calls 150 hours only generally the tipping point and notes it sometimes depends on the region, so treat it as the start of the calculation rather than the answer.

Why is a short private jet flight so much more expensive per hour?

Because the fixed elements of a charter, positioning, handling and minimum charges, do not shrink with the sector. In our analysis of 240 published European route prices the median works out at roughly 18,900 EUR per hour under 45 minutes against about 5,700 EUR per hour over two hours.

Which costs of ownership are fixed and which vary with use?

The industry standard split, used by Conklin & de Decker since the 1970s, puts crew, hangar, insurance and services on the fixed side and fuel, maintenance, landing and parking on the variable side. The fixed side runs whether the aircraft flies 50 hours or 500, which is why the hour thresholds exist at all.

Is there a French tax on private jet flights?

Yes. Since 1 March 2025 France levies a passenger tax on business jet departures under Article L. 422-22 of the French code. For a jet-engined business aircraft it is 420 EUR per passenger to a European destination, 1,015 EUR to an intermediate one and 2,100 EUR to a distant one. It applies to commercial operators, and the distance band is set by the distance from Paris to the destination country's capital.

Do you sell aircraft?

No. We take no commission from operators or brokers, which is why we can tell a client that they should keep chartering. When asked, we build the comparison on the client's own flight log and tax position.