Steve Varsano breaks down annual costs for corporate jets: roughly $1 million for a small jet, $2 million for a large-cabin jet, and $3 million for an ultra-long-range jet, based on 400 flight hours. Renting out unused hours helps but won't eliminate ownership costs since the plane must stay available. Smaller prop planes can handle regional trips for a fraction of the price.
Chapters
If you have a small jet, it's going to cost you about $1 million a year. If you have a large cabin, it's going to cost you $2 million a year. And if you have an ultra-long-range airplane, it's going to cost you $3 million a year. And that's based on 400 hours a year. You can cut that cost a lot because if you only fly 200 hours a year, you can rent the airplane out the other 200 hours and it could reduce your fixed cost considerably. You will never rent it out enough to fly for free because if you rent it out enough to fly for free, the airplane has to fly too many hours to be available to you. It's not how much you can earn before you can own an airplane. It is $1 million in cash flow. Going to transportation, something that your company can afford, and will it help you benefit and expand? That's the question. And by the way, we're talking about jets. You can get a little single-engine airplane that's going 200, 230 miles an hour. If you're in a regional area where you need to see clients, you can get away with nothing, a couple hundred dollars or $500 for a twin-engine an hour to run those things. All of a sudden, it becomes much more conceivable to actually buy a corporate airplane. It doesn't have to be a jet.