November 3, 2024
Jet card hourly prices increased to $11,748, however, Daily Minimums dropped to pre-Covid lows for light, midsize, and super midsize jets.
When it comes to jet card prices for fixed-rate, guaranteed availability jet cards and memberships, the average hourly rate increased to $11,748 in Q4 2022.
That marks a 21.0% increase from Q4 2021, 39.8% from their Q4 2020 low, and 4.9% from Q3 2022.
However, the price increases were offset by dropping Daily Minimums from a Q2 2022 high of 109.3 minutes to 94.7 minutes in Q4 2022, although still higher than the pre-Covid low of 86.2 minutes in Q4 2019. The result was the cost of shorter flights dropped by 8.8% from Q2 to Q4.
Also, the average jet card flight price was lower than on-demand private jet charter quotes in five of the 12 route scenarios we measured.
Overall, for the dozen flight scenarios (bottom table), the average jet card flight pricing was $ 28,364 versus 27,853 for on-demand charters was within $500 of each other.
Q4 2022 Jet Card hourly rates, including hourly cost, fuel surcharge, supplemental charges, and the 7.5% Federal Excise Tax.
Overall, the average hourly rate for fixed/capped rate jet card programs is now $11,748. Taking out turboprops, the jet rate is $11,955 per hour.
Jet card prices include North American providers currently selling or renewing fixed/capped-rate jet card programs and memberships with guaranteed availability.
| Dec. 2022 Avg. Hourly Rate |
Change vs. Dec. 2021 |
Change vs. Dec. 2020 |
Change vs. Sept. 2022 |
|
| Turboprop | $ 7,348 | 22.8% | 65.0% | 11.2% |
| Very Light Jet | $ 8,379 | 24.6% | 64.2% | 13.7% |
| Light Jet | $ 8,462 | 21.3% | 51.1% | 5.2% |
| Midsize Jet | $ 9,806 | 22.8% | 40.9% | 4.9% |
| Super Midsize | $ 12,675 | 19.9% | 37.9% | 4.6% |
| Large Cabin | $ 16,108 | 21.8% | 33.0% | 5.5% |
| Ultra-Long-Haul | $ 20,646 | 19.1% | 34.8% | 2.6% |
| Overall | $ 11,748 | 21.0% | 39.8% | 4.9% |
| Without Turboprops | $ 11,955 | 21.4% | 38.5% | 4.8% |
While all categories of jet cards saw price increases from Q3 to Q4, Ultra-Long-Haul-Jets were up only 2.6%.
Very Light Jets (+13.7%) and Turboprops (+11.2%) saw the largest price increases from quarter to quarter.
Particularly telling is the continued increase in Light Jet hourly prices, now $8,462 per hour, up 51.1% from the end of December 2020.
That’s significant since, according to The Jet Card Report 2022/23 by Private Jet Card Comparisons, Light Jets are used (51.1%) by the largest number of private flyers. Midsize Jets are used by 32.2% of flyers, 19.1% for Super Midsize Jets, 12.8% for Very Light Jets, 7.5% for Turboprops, and 4.7% for Large Cabin Jets.
Once again, we compared average fixed-rate, guaranteed availability jet card pricing with high-and-low pricing for on-demand charters.
Comparing on-demand providers who offer instant booking at guaranteed rates (table below), the ability to beat jet card pricing with on-demand dynamic pricing flipped again in Q4, with the lowest on-demand quotes winning average just card prices in seven of 12 scenarios after just a 2 of 12 showing in Q3.
For example, while the low on-demand quote for OPF-TEB on a light jet was $16,807, the high quote was $29,745.
The average fixed-rate light jet OPF-TEB jet card price was $23,750 for a light jet.
At the same time, the lowest instant booking on-demand quote for a midsize jet was $24,716, with a high of $35,521.
The average fixed-rate jet card price was $27,529 for a midsize jet from Miami to New York.
| Route | Aircraft Type |
Flight Minutes |
On-Demand Charter Low |
On-Demand Charter High |
Jet Card Average |
| OPF-TEB | Light | 157 | $ 16,807 | $ 29,745 | $ 23,750 |
| OKC-PIT | Light | 133 | $ 21,303 | $ 31,224 | $ 20,366 |
| BFI-PSP | Light | 141 | $ 26,551 | $ 29,527 | $ 21,494 |
| OPF-TEB | Midsize | 157 | $ 24,716 | $ 35,521 | $ 27,529 |
| PDK-HOU | Midsize | 107 | $ 18,921 | $ 32,463 | $ 19,358 |
| ASE-MSY | Midsize | 163 | $ 19,207 | $ 38,414 | $ 28,510 |
| OPF-TEB | Super Mid | 145 | $ 30,940 | $ 42,306 | $ 33,054 |
| OKC-PIT | Super Mid | 120 | $ 31,319 | $ 54,098 | $ 27,773 |
| BFI-PSP | Super Mid | 133 | $ 31,747 | $ 45,792 | $ 30,519 |
| OPF-TEB | Large | 151 | $ 36,609 | $ 41,459 | $ 43,593 |
| ASE-MSY | Large | 132 | $ 44,120 | $ 56,941 | $ 38,492 |
| BFI-PSP | Large | 115 | $ 32,999 | $ 52,928 | $ 33,928 |
| Avg Q4 2022 | $ 27,853 | $ 40,868 | $ 28,364 | ||
| Avg Q3 2022 | $ 29,794 | $ 45,623 | $ 25,744 |
As usual, on-demand charter works best for pricing between airports with a large number of private jets.
Of course, it’s not just pricing that guides what you will pay with fixed-rate jet cards, and here is some good news.
Peak Days and Callouts have both flattened out. That means it’s easier to use hourly jet card rates.
At the same time, there was a significant rollback in daily minimums from their Q2 highs, meaning that for shorter flights, despite higher hourly rates, actual flight costs dropped.
The average number of peak days stabilized during 2022, settling in Q4 at 55.7 peak days.
While a few companies have blackout dates, where customers cannot book at all, the biggest impact of peak days is longer booking and cancelation windows, surcharges, and the ability for the provider to shift your departure time by as much as +/- 8 hours.
So while Q4 2022 was only a slight increase over 53.7 peak days at the end of Q3, it is still 144% more than the pre-Covid average of 22.8 peak days in Q4 2019.
The minimum lead time to book reservations on non-peak days was 64.7 hours at the end of Q4 2022. Like Peak Days, that was in line with 62.9 hours at the end of Q3 2022 but still 179% higher than the 23.2 hours in Q4 2019.
Daily Minimums continue to be a bright note.
Daily Minimums impact short flights in that if your flights during the day are lower than the Daily Minimum, you pay the higher Daily Minimum amount.
Overall Daily Minimums dropped from a Q2 2022 high of 109.3 minutes to 94.7 minutes in Q4 2022, although still higher than the pre-Covid low of 86.2 minutes in Q4 2019. The result was the cost of shorter flights dropped by 8.8%.
Using Q4 data, at an $11,748 jet card average per hour rate x 94.7 minutes as the daily minimum, the minimum average jet card flight would be $18,542. In Q3, at an $11,200 jet card average per hour rate x 100.3 minutes as the average daily minimum, the minimum average jet card flight was $18,704. Similarly, the minimum average jet card flight was $20,374 at the Q2 peak for daily minimums.
Find the perfect solution for your private aviation needs
Save Time. Buy Confidently.
Receive an apples-to-apples comparison of programs that meet your needs from more than 500 jet card and fractional options covering 65 points of differentiation and over 40,000 data points.
