15 Oct 2021

How much does a private flight cost?

You are thinking about flying private but you don’t know how much does a private flight cost? You are are the right place. Unlike most charter broker websites, BIRDY made the choice to give you the real answer: there are as many price options as there are available jets, destinations and customer tastes on the planet.

Find out why below.

What makes the price of a private flight?

The are numerous criteria to think about in order to determine the final price of a private flight.

First of all, the customer request itself will of course represent the main price variable: departure & arrival cities will determine the flight duration, the number of passengers & quantity of luggage will require a different aircraft capacity, and the choice of an airport instead of another one will probably make the airport taxes and handling charges differ. Not to mention the extra-services a passenger may ask, such as TV, bedroom, catering, etc.

Once the customer demands are taken into account, the chosen aircraft itself will influence the price as some aircrafts offer better standards than others, will not need the same amount of fuel for the same distance and will not cost the same price to park at the destination airport for instance.

If we had to make a list of the different criteria, it could look like this:

  • Number of passengers
  • Quantity & weight of luggages
  • Date of departure and/or arrival
  • Time of departure and/or arrival
  • Flight duration
  • Airport of departure
  • Airport of arrival
  • Chosen aircraft
  • Services onboard
  • Aircraft & passengers handling
  • Aircraft parking or hangarage
  • Aircraft de-icing in winter season
  • Potential stopovers
  • Crew charges
  • Fuel …
  • … and many more structural & logistical fees for the operator

A few examples of private flight costs, just to give you an idea… :

Private flight cost:

  • From Paris to Nice Côte d’Azur on a Little Bird : around 6 000 €
  • From Paris to Ibiza on a Little Bird or Midsize Bird : around 15 000 €.
  • From Paris to Mykonos on a Midsize Bird : around 25 000 €.
  • From Paris to Moscow on a Midsize Bird or Heavy Bird  : around 40 000
  • From Paris to Dubaï on a Heavy Bird : around 65 000 €.
  • From Paris to New York on a Heavy Bird : around 80 000 €.

Are there cheaper options?

There are always cheaper options. BIRDY made the choice to select the upmost services only with “on-demand” flights only, but if you consider that chartering on-demand is not the best choice for you and you are looking for a better private flight cost, here are the other solutions that might be of interest:

Private jet card membership

Some private jet & charter companies offer memberships with a prepayment system called “Jet Card”. In the most common cases, they will ask you to pay for a membership fee as a deposit. Then, whenever you need a flight, they will apply a negotiated hourly rate – sometimes interesting compared to the typical on-demand hourly rate – and deduct the total cost of the flight from the amount paid upfront, until you fly as much as you had prepaid for. This means 2 things:

  • The company you will sign up with usually has a limited fleet of aircrafts available to their membership program.
  • You are committed to a certain number of hours and some of them don’t do refunds if you haven’t flown as much as you had paid for within the membership period of time.

Empty legs

Repositioning flights are great opportunities to fly cheaper on a private jet. Indeed, the aircraft is on a mission and will have to fly wether you are on board or not, which means that private jet companies can offer a huge discount to “compensate” the charges of the empty aircraft trip.

However, you have to keep in mind that nothing is guaranteed with an empty leg – the schedule and even the route can change anytime. Also, the available services onboard might very limited.

At BIRDY, we made the choice to always check if there is an empty leg available for your route & schedule before making an offer to you, first in order to have a positive impact on the environment but, but also so that you can have the opportunity to discover another aircraft than your favorite BIRDY, at a discounted price. If we don’t make the suggestion, it only means there is no matching empty leg at the moment.

Book a single seat

Almost the same way you would book a seat on a commercial flight, some private jet companies offer the possibility to book a single seat onboard a private jet. Although the schedule is not as flexible as if you had rented the whole jet for yourself, and although you will have to share the jet with other people, you still benefit from the other advantages like the access to a lot more airports in the world, the absence of waiting time and heavy procedures at the airport, and sometimes more comfort than with commercial airlines. If you frequently fly the same short distances, this solution should fit you, especially because some companies offer unlimited flight plans for a monthly rate. However, this option is not as widely available for long-range trip as it is for short ones.

Now ask yourself why you wanna fly private; Avoid waiting time in the security lines? Avoid the crowds in big airports and onboard? Party with your friends on a private jet heading to Ibiza? Concentrate on a confidential business project? Or maybe just for fun?

If you want to fly entirely private with no subscription fee, no commitment, and no heavy charges, booking a BIRDY remains your best option!

What’s included in the price of a private flight?

As you will see on the BFA (Birdy Flight Agreement), all the charges are listed with transparency. Most fees can be grouped into 4 categories:

  • Private jet rental cost
  • Crew charges
  • Basic airport taxes & services costs
  • Onboard first-class services such as national press, drinks and meals
  • Travel insurance and extra-insurance premiums (for high-risk destinations* only).

 

Additional fees may be added to the your total private flight cost, after the flight:

  • Depending on the season & local temperature at the departure or arrival airports; during the winter, the de-icing of the aircraft may be required in order to take-off safely and this will be added to the final invoice.
  • Depending on the last-minute services requested by the passengers; international press, additional catering, wifi, etc.

 

*Lately, these countries included Syria, Irak, Afghanistan, Egypt, Turkey or Nigeria.

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