How Much Does It Cost To Fly In Private Jets?

I've never really seen the need for huge personal wealth, but I am envious of flying in private jets.   Not that I spend my days and nights crying over it but it does seem like it would be pretty enjoyable to fly in a private jet.    Its one of the things I'd think about doing if I were to win the lottery or otherwise fall into vast wealth.

But how much does it really cost?

From what I gather it costs in the ballpark of $5000 or more per hour to fly in a small private jet.   

Thats basically the entry level prices for private jets.   So that means a short 1 hour flight from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in a small jet will cost  in the ballpark of $5k.   And when I say a small jet I mean small.  Those small jets only seat a few people and the headroom means adults have to stoop when they are not seated.   They might only carry a few bags worth of luggage.   Medium size and larger gets will cost more.




A couple sites have search engines / calculators that will give estimated prices for flights : 

How Much Does It Cost to Charter a Private Aircraft? at the SherapReport

How much does a private flight cost from PrivateFly

I tested both on a short 1 hr flight round trip (2 hr total) and got quotes of about $10k for the trip in a small jet.   Those rates are for charter flights.  

You can also buy hours in bulk from operators like NetJet and others.

Private Jets for Everyone? from Travel and Leisure pointed to a few different companies that sell basically pre-paid private jet accounts with typically 20 or 25 for ~$110-130k or roughly $5k per hour.  

Clearly spending $5000 for a 1 hour flight is not frugal.   But its not as awful if you consider that you can fit 4 or more people in that plane.   Lets say you've got a family of 4 and you're flying round trip for that 1 hour distance.   That comes to $2500 per person.   Flying first class for such a journey would probably run you $500 a seat.   Of course you can fly economy for $200 or so.      Probably the most frugal option to fly in style is to get the economy tickets then upgrade to first class using miles.

I'm a far cry from being able to afford to fly via private jets.  So please share this story with 50 million of your friends so this blog can become super successful then I can sell out for multi millions.

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