Charter, jet card, fractional share, or your own aircraft. Independent math, on the buyer's side of the table.
THE INDEPENDENT DECISION DESK · NO LOGIN · NO TRACKING · ESTIMATES LABELED EST · METHODOLOGY PUBLISHED
Charter sites, jet-card sellers, and fractional programs all publish “comparisons” that end at their own product. Ours ends at the math.
The industry standard is a quote form that wants your phone number first. Here, every figure renders instantly, in your browser, unattributed.
Peak days, remarketing fees, FET, call-out windows: the clauses that decide what you pay, collected in one place because nobody selling wants to list them.
Every estimate is labeled EST and traces to a published equation and a named source with a read date. If you disagree with an input, you can see exactly which one.
Holding a quote right now? Check it against the model, and see what it has not answered → the Quote Audit
≈ 0–50 HRS/YR
Pay per trip, own nothing, owe nothing tomorrow. The cheapest door into private aviation and the only one with zero commitment. The trade: nobody guarantees you an aircraft.
≈ 25–100 HRS/YR
Prepaid hours at a fixed rate with guaranteed availability inside a call-out window. You pay a premium for certainty: the published North American average was $11,314/hr all-in in Q2 2026.
≈ 50–300 HRS/YR
Buy 1/16th or more of an actual aircraft; pay monthly management plus occupied hours. Airline-grade consistency, funded by capital that depreciates.
≈ 250+ HRS/YR
Total control, total cost. Below ~200 hours a year you are paying a full flight department to wait. Depreciation, not fuel, is the biggest line item.
Five inputs. The engine prices all four pathways for your profile and shows its work, including the case against its own recommendation. Results update as you adjust.
START FROM A PROFILE, THEN ADJUST
Renewal rates are quoted against the market of the day, not the rate you signed last year. This puts your number next to the published category average and next to simply chartering the same class.
MID-RANGE ESTIMATES, EST, USD · EQUATIONS & SOURCES: METHODOLOGY
Great-circle distance, block time by aircraft class, and a one-way estimate that includes US federal excise tax and the two-hour minimums most quotes omit.
Quotes move with positioning, dates, and demand; treat these as the center of the market, not a promise. Peak dates run 20–40% higher.
Prefer reading? Sixteen city pairs have full written cost guides → the route library
The aircraft flying today's charter and fractional fleets. Filter by mission, compare up to three side by side.
SHOWING
Every airframe above has a full page with specs, cost picture, and typical missions → the aircraft library
Crew, hangar, insurance, engine programs, and the line item every seller skips: depreciation. Pick an aircraft or set your own price.
Thirty clauses collected from contracts, provider disclosures and the federal rules governing charter brokers: the paragraphs a sales deck never quotes, each with the question to ask before you sign. Every clause has its own link, because the useful thing to send someone mid-negotiation is one paragraph rather than a page.
An empty leg is a repositioning flight: an aircraft flying home, or to its next job, without passengers. Operators would rather sell that seat block at a steep discount than fly it empty, so genuine bargains exist. The same Challenger that quotes $45,000 one-way can appear at $15,000.
The asterisk: the route and timing belong to someone else's trip. If the primary client moves their departure, your flight moves or evaporates; you get a refund, not another aircraft. Treat empty legs as a game for people whose plans bend, not as a way to save on a flight you must make.
IS THE OFFER IN FRONT OF YOU ACTUALLY A DISCOUNT?
Serious buyers don't fill in quote forms. They issue requirements. Build a professional charter RFP below, then send it to any broker you like, or let our desk introduce you to one suited to the mission. Every brief demands the disclosures a US charter broker owes you by rule, so most of the awkward questions are asked before the first quote arrives.
If you book for the same person or party repeatedly, the re-briefing is the real cost. Fill this in once and it attaches to every RFP you build here. It is saved in this browser only, it is never sent anywhere, and it deliberately stays out of the shareable link.
“Email the desk” opens your mail client; nothing is transmitted until you press send. We review each brief personally and introduce you to a brokerage suited to the mission. You deal with them directly, and if you fly, they may pay us a referral fee (full disclosure). The math on this site is identical either way.