Flight delays, illnesses, critical meetings drive demand for same-day and next-day private jet charters. Changing your mind can be expensive.
Private jet charter brokers often promote being able to help you get airborne within a couple of hours of calling.
It’s something data shows happens thousands of times per day.
According to Avinode, an online marketplace brokers use to source charter aircraft, 10% of all requests are for departures within 24 hours, commonly referred to as ASAPs.
It’s not necessarily an easy trick, and if you book and then cancel, be prepared to pay the full charter cost.
Next time somebody crows that they are the digital Uber of private jets, feel free to laugh in their face.
There’s a lot of work involved in booking a private jet charter: first, your broker has to find available aircraft.
There are over 600 charter jet operators in the U.S.
Most of them are small.
The broker has to call or email them to find out or confirm which, if any of their aircraft, are actually available.
For short-notice trips, that means searching for operators close to the departure airport to minimize repositioning costs and time.
That can mean using operators the broker doesn’t regularly source from.
Then there is price.
Each charter flight is a unique negotiation.
While scheduled airlines see selling a last-minute seat as pure profit, with charter aircraft, it can actually trigger extra costs.
The ASAP trip potentially impacts positioning for subsequent booked trips and crew schedules.
Those costs have to be baked into the ASAP quote.
After that, the broker works with the operator, who needs to coordinate the flight.
The operator needs to run passenger data against the no-fly list, ensure they have flight crews legally able to fly the trip, organize fueling based on airport conditions, passenger weights, and luggage, arrange FBO services and aircraft positioning, and more, all on short notice.
That’s not even considering external factors such as weather, air traffic control, and airport restrictions that can affect a trip.
Brokers often coordinate catering and ground transportation, and, oh, of course, payments if it’s not a regular client or a client with deposit funds.
A credit card is usually required for security, as there isn’t time to wire funds before departure.
Depending on the broker-operator relationship, the broker may have to pay the operator before takeoff or provide their credit card as a guarantee.
They also keep your credit card on file to charge it if you don’t wire the funds.
And by the way, with those brokers who proclaim themselves a digital Uber or Expedia of ad hoc private jet charters, see if you can book a plane instantly for the same day or the next day online.
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What’s not often discussed is what happens if your plans change as suddenly.
Brokers say same-day and next-day trip requests, referred to as ASAPs, are common.
In fact, Avinode data shows 20% of all requests are from brokers trying to source airplanes for clients who want to get wheels up within that day, the next day, or the day after.
David Gitman, CEO of Monarch Air Group, which is currently a plaintiff in litigation to recover cancellation fees, says his charter brokerage books up to 20 ASAP requests per week.
Aviation Portfolio’s Craig Ross, who helps manage flying for fractional-share owners, says he gets several requests per day for same-day departures.
Most are related to cancelled commercial airline flights.
About 90% of private aviation users toggle between airlines and private skies, according to industry research.
TLC Jet Founder Justin Firestone says about 30% of all quote requests to his brokerage are for same-day or next-day flights.
Brokers literally sleep with their phones.
Availability and response time can often win a deal.
Firestone lists several reasons for last-minute bookings.
Like Ross, he says the top reason is cancelled or delayed airline flights.
Often, private jets are sought because airlines are unable to rebook passengers within an acceptable window.
With airline flights going out full, available seats for rebooking multiple people can mean a multi-day delay in reaching your destination.
Other reasons for needing to take off quickly include the death or illness of a loved one, the need to close a deal, deliver essential papers, or service a client.
Getting out of the path of a hurricane before airports close drives last-minute bookings.
That can include requests to fly older relatives.
Firestone also receives calls from private jet owners when a pilot is unavailable due to illness or when their airplane has mechanical issues.
The private jet owners still need to reach their destination.
Airline schedules often don’t work, which is the reason they own a jet in the first place.
Others call while they are waiting for their fractional or jet card provider to arrange a replacement aircraft when the scheduled airplane has a mechanical issue.
They want to see if they can find a replacement aircraft faster.
Ross says most callers don’t end up booking.
That’s life for brokers and operators – quoting trips that never book.
But this story is about when you book that last-minute flight – and then cancel.
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A lawsuit recently filed by Monarch Air Group against Blade Air Mobility and its then Trinity Air Medical Flight unit serves as a cautionary tale.
Joby Aviation acquired Blade’s passenger business in September.
But back in February, Trinity was seeking to organize an organ transplant flight – part of the ASAP market – on behalf of a hospital client.
It contacted Monarch Air Group, which acted as a broker.
Monarch contracted with Century Jets, a charter operator.
Century Jets would fly one of its Gulfstream aircraft from San Jose, California, to Honolulu, pick up a heart, and then transport it back to California for a planned transplant operation.
The flight never took place.
However, what happened over several hours in the middle of the night in February is now at the center of the lawsuit filed last week in the 17th Judicial Circuit in Broward County, Florida.
The flight cost was $132,200 if paid via wire or $138,810 via credit card.
According to the lawsuit, the private jet charter request came in on February 23, 2025, at 1:02 am. Pacific Standard Time, when Trinity contacted Monarch for an urgent, same-day round-trip private charter flight from San Jose, California, to Honolulu, Hawaii, in connection with the critical organ transport.
By 3:21 am, Monarch says it sent Trinity a formal contract for the flight.
Trinity executed and returned the contract at 3:26 am, according to the filing.
Before the contract was signed, and then after, there was a flurry of emails.
Initially, there was a discussion about pricing – a less expensive option would be available later in the day, but it would be too late for such a time-critical mission.
There was back-and-forth about the need for a second flight crew and the associated expense, as the first crew would likely run out of duty time.
The representatives of Monarch and Trinity discussed Wi-Fi, whether it would work over the ocean, and possibly switching FBOs.
Departure was planned for 7:00 am that morning from San Jose with an estimated flight time of five hours and 36 minutes.
The return was planned for the same day, bringing back the transplant organ.
According to the filing, at 5:23 am PST, less than two hours before the planned departure, Trinity cancelled the flight.
The charter agreement for the Gulfstream G-IV states, in part, that the round-trip cancellation policy is “48 hours before departure, 100% cancellation charge.”
Monarch then alleges:
‘Because Trinity refused to pay despite multiple demands, and after Monarch graciously granted Trinity an additional three days to make the promised (wire) payment, Monarch followed its standard procedures and charged the Visa credit card Trinity had provided on file for the agreed amounts of $99,000.00 and $39,810.00, on or around February 26, 2025. The funds were successfully processed and deposited into Monarch’s account. Soon thereafter, Trinity contacted Visa and disputed both charges, falsely and fraudulently claiming that no services had been provided.’
Monarch is firm on its position.
Its attorney writes in the filing, “Monarch immediately secured the aircraft, crew, and operator required for the flight; entered into a binding charter arrangement with its operator, Century Jets; and completed all necessary preparations and logistics for the urgent mission-critical flight.”
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The dispute was far from over.
Monarch asserts:
‘Based on Trinity’s misrepresentations, Visa initially withdrew all of the funds from Monarch’s account, and Monarch was forced to challenge the disputes to recover the amounts that were rightfully owed. After Visa rejected Trinity’s initial disputes and upheld both charges, Trinity filed a second dispute on or around April 24, 2025, this time targeting only the $39,810 charge, and advanced a new, knowingly false claim that the flight had been scheduled for February 25 rather than February 23.’
Trinity, according to Monarch, also represented to Visa that it had never been provided the cancellation terms and had “no contractual obligation to pay.”
Monarch called Trinity’s claims to Visa “knowingly false.”
In July, Monarch sent Trinity a claims notice regarding the $39,810 Visa chargeback, stating it was “wrongfully depriving Monarch of funds it had already rightly collected under the contract.”
It wants treble damages under Florida law.
The lawsuit was then filed last week in Florida.
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Monarch’s Gitman says he is disappointed, particularly since it is an industry client.
He tells Private Jet Card Comparisons, “It’s astonishing that a publicly traded, fully reporting company would intentionally submit false information to a major financial institution simply to avoid paying a routine cancellation fee.”
Gitman continues:
‘What makes this behavior even more troubling is the context: Blade contacted us in the middle of the night for urgent assistance on a time-sensitive organ-transport mission, the very field they claim to be experts in. We stepped in, as we routinely do, and their response was to evade payment and distort the facts. And rather than resolving this straightforward matter professionally, Blade’s leadership was nowhere to be found. Their absence reflects what I believe to be a deeply concerning corporate culture, one that defaults to deflecting, avoiding responsibility, and submitting false information instead of addressing a minor issue. We look forward to discovery. I expect it will shed far more light on how Blade operates behind the scenes.’
He says, “Instead of honoring a clear contractual obligation, they attempted to shift the cost onto their vendor through what we believe is outright fraud.”
Brad D. Rose, an attorney for Trinity, tells Private Jet Card Comparisons, “This action is entirely meritless and a pathetic and wasteful overreach by Monarch to unjustly coerce a payment to which it is not entitled.”
He says, “Defendants will aggressively respond in due course.”
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The cancellation policy for the Monarch-Trinity litigation is related to round-trip flights.
Roundtrips in private aviation are different than those with the airlines.
Private charter roundtrips involve the same charter jet and crew departing, waiting for you, and returning you.
It is regardless of whether you are on an airplane on both legs.
Since this is about booking ASAPs, let’s look a bit deeper.
One-way flights are flights that are not round-trip.
For what it’s worth, one-way flight cancellations are often more stringent.
The charter agreement for the Gulfstream G-IV, organized by Monarch Air Group, also covers cancellation terms for one-way flights.
One-way flights have “a cancellation fee equal to 100% of the total cost of the trip.”
That penalty is in effect as soon as you sign the contract.
That means, under those terms, if you book a one-way flight a week out and cancel six days before, the 100% cancellation fee would still apply.
There’s more.
There are different peak-day cancellation penalties.
Departures during a peak period carry a 100% penalty after signing the contract.
That’s regardless of whether it’s a one-way or round-trip.
Peak days in the ad hoc charter world vary.
In this particular contract, they fall “within three calendar days, before or after any calendar holiday.”
Currently, there are 11 official U.S. government holidays.
That’s 77 dates, meaning that after signing, you are subject to a 100% cancellation charge.
When cancellations occur well in advance of departure, brokers often try to work with operators to reduce the cancellation charge.
However, brokers and operators say there is an opportunity cost from the jet being off the market.
In the case of late cancellations, such as those involving Monarch and Trinity, they can affect pilots’ duty times and availability, resulting in lost revenue.
Jessie Naor, the former president of GrandView Aviation, which specialized in organ transplants, said the operator may have had to pay the pilots even if the flight didn’t take off.
One lawyer, who didn’t want to be quoted by name, said Trinity could have had Century and Monarch “fly a ham sandwich to Hawaii and back” if they believed they would have to pay for a flight that never left the ground.
The lawyer says the opaque nature of the charter market means some brokers and operators use cancellations as an opportunity to “get a windfall,” something he termed “unethical.”
Of course, the bottom line is, if you cancel after the deadline, don’t expect a refund.
The same goes if you are a no-show or arrive late; charter jets will usually wait up to one hour.
Most of all, expect to be charged the full 100% cost of the charter if you cancel an ASAP booking.
If you want to fight it, make sure to calculate attorneys’ fees.
Century Jets did not respond to requests for comment.
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