5 Reasons for Chartering vs Buying a Private Jet
Undoubtedly ownership of a private jet has its perks. Whenever a person becomes wealthy enough to purchase anything, his mind becomes overfilled with possibilities. It starts with numerous cars, then yachts, and continues to private jets. Well, whilst you can put those cars in a garage and the yachts will stay in ports, you cannot really hide a whole airplane in your back yard. The aircraft has to stay on the airport grounds, in a hangar and be maintained at all time. And while many people opt for this option, they often do not consider other possibilities on the menu. An easier and better (trust us!) solution is called a private jet broker. You don’t believe us?
Here are the top 5 reasons why chartering a private jet can provide you with better travel solutions than owning the jet outright.
1. Stuck with your own jet.
Let’s say you are a family of 6: mom, dad and 4 children who live in Europe. You would probably opt for the purchase of a jet ranging from small to mid size and use it to fly around Europe, where it takes you 3 hours maximum to get to any destination without a fuel stop. And then, one day you need to fly to Rio or New York and your jet just is not capable of flying so far! You would have to make at least one fuel stop on the way and spend a lot of time (and time is money, as we all know). A different problem can occur when flying within Europe as well. Many airports, such as St. Tropez, Cannes, London City and many others, have very short runways, so even with your super light jet you may not be able to land.
So all in all, a conclusion is very clear. If you buy a plane, it doesn’t mean that you would never have to purchase flight tickets anymore, which makes us wonder if having a private jet is really such a good idea? What you could do instead is use charter brokers. They have thousands of aircraft possibilities available at any time, and will cater to your needs, route, airports, flight times and budget.
2. Need more than one aircraft at a time?
You have to fly for a business meeting to New York and your wife is taking the kids to Disneyland on the same weekend. Would it even be possible to buy enough private jets for all the occasions? And if you have only one, how can you delegate who can use it? There are more questions than answers!
Charter brokers on the other hand do not require long-term commitment and are the perfect solution for you in any situation. With their help you can book different aircraft only when you need to, and they will be happy to organise all your trips. This way you will make it successfully to your meeting and your kids will be departing privately for an adventurous weekend.
3. What about the regular and urgent flights?
Let’s say that in the business world everything is always planned ahead. Imagine you live in London and have a regular executive meeting every month in Paris. Well, no struggle here - your private advisor can prepare a flight plan so you do not have to worry about making a reservation every month. On the other hand, not everything always goes as planned and you suddenly might have to depart to the other side of the planet. Again, not a problem! Call the chartering broker and they will ask for a flight crew that will rush to help you. In extreme urgent conditions they can even organise a flight within 60 minutes of departure.
Not the case with an ownership of a private jet! Your crew might not be able to get to the airport on such a short notice and arranging the plane might take some time as well. Worst yet, your aircraft might be in maintenance. What about the holiday destinations for your family? Your private jet advisor will make sure to reserve an appropriate aircraft, suitable transfer, pick an interesting destination and will take care of them from the very beginning until passengers safely arrive at the villa or chalet. Needless to say, if your plans suddenly change, so will the arrangements with your broker.
4. How much does it cost to keep an aircraft?
Buying a plane is not a difficult thing to do. Some prefer to pay full price straight away, some take leasing and pay interest. But that’s the easiest part of the deal. A plane is not a car, you can’t just leave it in the garage and use it only when you need. Let’s go back to our example of the super light size jet. The capacity of average cabin is 7-8 passengers. For such an aircraft you will require 2 Captains, 1 Co-pilot and 1 Flight Attendant and will have to pay them an annual year around salary no matter how often you actually use the plane. But this salary only accounts for about 30% of total fixed costs.
The most important cost is maintenance. Aircraft, and even more so helicopters, are very delicate machines of high precision, regularly immobilized for one kind of maintenance or another and no short cuts are allowed! Than you would also have to pay aircraft insurance (you can imagine that it is at least 50 times more expensive than for a car), and then comes the rest of it: crew training, navigational services and subscriptions, technical publications, communications, crew uniforms, management fees (to the operating company that will manage the aircraft and deal with flight operations) and other miscellaneous costs. We know, it will turn out not to be the cheapest investment.
5. How much does it cost to fly my plane?
After the fixed costs you also have to consider the variable costs. Those costs include fuel, extra maintenance, catering, overflight fees and miscellaneous. The variable cost will depend on the number of hours flown, meaning the more you fly the more expensive it becomes. With increasing numbers of hours in the air, the proportion of fixed costs to variable will decrease. If you fly 700 hours/year it will be 37% to 63%. In other words, to fly 700 hours a year you have to take your private jet for a trip of a distance from London to New York and back every week.
Is it possible to win when owning a private jet?
After all these huge numbers, let’s see what charter brokers have to offer. And here we came up with a simple equation. If you have your very own private jet, and fly 700 hours a year, your trip from London to New York and back will be 30% less expensive than the charter price, taking into consideration both fixed and variable costs. But do not forget about the price of a plane! In order to fly so far, you will need something from a large jet to a VIP airliner. The average price might be around 45 million dollars. So, in order to beat the price of the charter broker, your aircraft will have to fly every week for 17 hours for at least 19 years! So, easy to see here that using charter brokers is much more economical than purchasing a jet. Charter brokers do not require long-term commitment and are at your service whenever and wherever needed. Flexibility is what they thrive on, and they will find you the aircraft located closest to your airport of departure. You need to fly in an hour? Wish to use two aircraft? Would like to experience different types of aircraft? In all the points above private chartering fully and completely beats owning a jet!
Source: lunajets
