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Even if you barely fly, chances are you’re irked by TSA frisking, overpriced food court
meals, long layovers, paying for baggage checks, and the very real possibility of cramming
into a middle seat.
Good news: in recent years, better options have flown onto our radar.
When pricing out the cost difference between a commercial airline and a private airline,
it’s important to analyze what’s included in the base fare.
Items like free drinks, complimentary baggage check, lounge access, and flying direct are
worth a lot of money if you had to pay for those perks yourself.
Booking a flight on a private jet has long been viewed as swanky.
But if you think traveling from let’s, say New York to California requires access to
your own personal Gulfstream, think again.
You can simply use fly sharing companies like SurfAir, JSX, and BlackBird which enable you
to buy a seat on a private jet rather than chartering the whole plane, Past deals on
JSX have included a flight for $100 from Oakland to Phoenix, $89 between Burbank and Las Vegas,
and $99 between Las Vegas and Orange County.
Of course, the cheapest way to fly privately is to have a friend who invites you on their
flight.
Then there are the semi-private charters like JetSmarter, JetSuiteX, and JetClass where
you can buy a seat on a scheduled private jet and corporate shuttle flight sharing it
with strangers, much like if you were on a commercial airline.
You can buy tickets on these flights for under $200 and you do avoid those crowded main airport
terminals.
However, if you want to have the real deal experience, chartering your own private jet,
you are looking at something between $5,000 and up to $20,000 per hour depending on the
size of aircraft and routing.
But, is there a cheaper way to get that entire private jet to yourself, it’s called and
an empty leg, which is a repositioning flight that takes place after the aircraft dropped
off its last full paying charter passengers and now has to fly to another airport to pick
up its next group, or sometimes for the aircraft and crew to come back to their base after
dropping off customers and various combinations.
For example, someone might pay $10k to charter a private jet from LA to Lake Tahoe.
But the next charter booking that plane had was from San Francisco to Seattle.
Traditionally the plane would fly empty from Lake Tahoe to San Francisco.
Unsurprisingly charter companies would prefer to earn income on that flight so they will
sell the flight at a discounted “empty leg” rate.
This generally ranges from between 25% to 75% of the normal charter price based on the
routing.
If you want to fly from Barcelona to Nice, you could score an empty leg deal on a large
Global 6000 jet for less than $5000.
The downside is that if the paying customer – that person shelling out $5,000 to $20,000
per hour - cancels their trip, then your empty leg will also be canceled.
If you were going somewhere, make sure your hotel and car rental reservations can be changed
without penalty.
If you were using an empty leg to get home, make sure you also scan the airline schedules
and availability so you have a backup plan because most empty legs can be canceled any
time before departure.
When you play the empty leg game, you need to be very flexible and understand that there’s
a decent chance your empty leg may not happen or might be moved.
If the customer chartering the inbound flight wants to leave a few hours later, your flight
will be delayed.
On the flip side, your planned departure could be suddenly moved up because Mr. Big wants
to leave earlier.
Over the years, we’ve seen an introduction of newer types of jets that are smaller in
size, yet capable of flying up to six people on board.
These jets drastically reduced the operating costs for jets, and made owning a jet a lot
more affordable, they are called VLJs, aka Very light jets.
A very light jet can cost up to one-tenth per hour to operate than a typical midsize
jet.
These jets are a great choice for someone that wants to fly in their jets with just
a few hundred dollars, rather than join empty legs or do fly sharing.
A good example is the Honda Jet.
This jet is a master of short-range missions, it uses the Honda HF120 small turbofan engines
mounted on pylons above the wing, a configuration called Over-The-Wing Engine Mount by Honda
Aircraft.
This configuration maximizes cabin space by removing the structure required to mount engines
on the rear of the fuselage.
The cabin of this jet cabin measures 12.1 feet long, 5 feet wide, and 4.8 feet tall,
giving it a total cabin volume of 324 cubic feet making it comfortable for 6 passengers,
with the maximum configuration seating 6.
The baggage compartment can hold up to 9 bags assuming your average piece of luggage is
less than 5 cubic feet.
The Honda Jet has a maximum range of 1388 miles and a maximum speed of 423 mph.
The Vision Jet is also another good example, this is the most affordable private jet in
the market today.
if you want a turbine engine aircraft, this is your starter.
It’s smaller than every jet in production and it is the only certified single-engine
jet in production today, the pilot and passengers share the same space.
That’s because Cirrus engineers designed it for owners who also want to be the pilot,
no flight crew is required.
The design is made entirely of composite material, first for a production jet.
The enclosed cabin measures 5.1 ft wide and 4.1 ft high.
It can seat up to seven occupants.
The cockpit, second and third rows each seat two, and an extra seat slide between the second
and third row, but the third row is only large enough to accommodate children.
The SF50 is the first jet to come with a whole-aircraft ballistic parachute, making it the safest
aircraft in the light jet category.
This aircraft is intended to be a step-up aircraft for pilots who have flown the Cirrus
SR20, SR22, and other high-performance airplanes like the Lancairs, and it was developed initially
for personal use and not for the corporate or air taxi industries.
However, by 2019, the jet was FAR part 135 approved for air taxi operators.
This jet cruises at 350 mph, with a range of 1000 miles.
The Eclipse 500 is also another great private jet to consider, it sold for only $500,000
when it was introduced.
The company’s dream was to make jets as affordable as possible, but unfortunately,
that dream was short-lived.
Production of the Eclipse 500 was halted in October 2008 due to lack of funding and the
company entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2008.
The Eclipse 500 was manufactured by Eclipse between 2007 and 2008.
The cabin is pretty small and automobile-inspired, it measures 12.3 feet long, 4.7 feet wide,
and 4.2 feet tall giving it a total cabin volume of 109 cubic feet making it comfortable
for 4 passengers, with the maximum configuration seating 4.
The baggage compartment can hold up to 3 bags assuming your average piece of luggage is
less than 5 cubic feet.
The Eclipse 500 has a maximum range of 1294 miles and a maximum speed of 430 mph, making
it perfect for trips around 800 miles.
Since this jet is no longer in production, you can only get a used model for less than
$1m.
Another great affordable private jet is the Embraer Phenom 300
When Embraer introduced the phenom 100 in 2008, customers loved it, but they wanted
the same design in a bigger airframe, so Embraer began designing the Phenom 300 in 2009.
This aircraft is designed to “stretch the limits of the light jet segment by creating
an airplane with best-in-class performance, comfort, and utility while keeping operating
costs at turboprop levels.”
The Phenom 300 was so successful in that regard that it has been the best-selling light business
jet worldwide since its introduction.
Its elegant design offers flexible, comfortable passenger accommodations while its cutting-edge
technology offers a top-quality flying experience for the pilot.
Plus, its efficiency makes it one of the most cost-effective aircraft in cost per available
seat mile.
For owner-operators, this single-pilot light jet is staggeringly efficient, cost-effective,
and dependable as well as a gorgeous example of functional aeronautical design.
This jet cruises at 500 mph, with a range of 2300 miles, burning about 157 gallons per
hour.
Most light jets don’t go far, but that is not the case for the SyberJet SJ30
Originating in the 1980s, the SyberJet program approach to designing successful aircraft
has changed over the years.
Currently, SyberJet’s focus is to deliver revolutionary aerodynamics, advanced avionics,
powerful engines, and increased cabin technologies.
Flying farther and faster than any other light jet, the SJ30 business jets have a 2,500nm
range and can fly non-stop from Los Angeles to New York or across the entire Atlantic
Ocean at a top speed of 486 knots.
With high swept wings and a T-tail, the SJ30 series jets reduce drag and increases performance.
Two mid-mounted Williams FJ44-2A engines also reduce drag, providing 23,000 pounds of thrust
each.
Capable of flying at a maximum altitude of 49,000 feet, the SJ30 light jet can avoid
traffic, fly above the weather, and take more direct routes to their destinations.
Buying this jet brand new will cost you about $8.5m.