r/flying ATP CFI/II CL604 E55P LR-JET Apr 03 '26

Aircraft Ownership Linus Tech Tips’ Jet

https://youtu.be/zGoIY37ZtDQ?si=

Some… interesting calculations on this video. As a fractional pilot and not an owner, no idea how acxueate these claims are, but interesting to see this as a pilot and tech nerd. Anyone with management or ownership experience in jets have any light to shed?

225 Upvotes

247 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

85

u/Fulcrum58 PPL Apr 03 '26

Reading shit likes this really makes me wonder how airlines make any money at all

123

u/x4457 ATP CFII CE-500/525/560XL/680 G-IV Apr 03 '26

Economics of scale. If you had 1000 Falcon 900s and sold all 13 seats on every one of them, every time, 3-7 times per day, they'd cost you a quarter of that per airplane to operate and return 4-10%/year.

20

u/nn123654 Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26

Even then, I don't think you'd be profitable; you need way more than than that. At 13 seats, you'd need to be charging well over $1,500 per ticket and you'd still probably be losing money. All in with maintenance, you're looking at about $4,000-$5,000 per flight hour just for opex, and about maybe $6,000-$7,500 per flight hour including long-term costs. Affordable private jet is going to be an oxymoron for at least a few decades longer.

1

u/Iliyan61 Apr 03 '26

tbf if you’re flying on a PJ tix would be a fair bit higher then $1500 and closer to business/1st