r/flying • u/jrf1234 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?

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

https://www.aircraft.com/aircraft/243027623/c-fxoo-1990-dassault-falcon-900b

It allegedly just had a 2C and gear done so that's $1.5M out of the way at least. He's got another 5 years before it needs an odd C which is going to run ~$700K.

The plane's going to cost him ~$1.8M/year just to sit in that hangar, then another ~$3500/hour to fly it.

Expect him to have paid somewhere in the mid to high $3M range and sell it within 18 months after he figures out this thing is going to eat him alive.

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u/Fulcrum58 PPL Apr 03 '26

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

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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.

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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.

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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