A business jet takes off every 8 seconds. About one in three carries no one.
Where private jets fly most: the 15 busiest empty-leg corridors. Tap one.
Gold: the busiest empty-leg corridors, counted as repositioning legs over twelve months on the SkyAccess marketplace (Empty Leg Index, August 2026); one marketplace's data, not a market total. Blue: other popular private-jet routes, for illustration. The counter spreads WingX's 3.9 million business jet departures of 2025 evenly over 2026; "one in three empty" is an industry estimate, quoted from 30% to 40%, not an official statistic.
Yes. Any business jet can carry paying passengers seat by seat once it flies on the certificate of an operator that holds an air operator certificate. That operator can sell it four ways: a whole charter, a shared flight with its empty seats sold to strangers, an empty leg, or a semi-private route sold one seat at a time, as JSX does with 30-seat jets from about $129. Demand is there: 39% of private flyers want by-the-seat flights, and about a third of business jet flights still fly empty.
The ICCJET review. Before you buy, we work out which jet fits your routes and the charter or seat-sale model, what it can gross per hour and per seat, and what the market holds for that type, on and off market. Then we find the jet and see the purchase through, for buyers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and worldwide.
Pick a jet and the hours it flies for paying clients in a year. Then set how many seats sell per flight and at what price per seat-hour, and see when seat sales beat a whole charter.
Gross income only: the operator's share, fuel, crew, landing, handling, maintenance reserves, hangar and insurance come out of it, so the owner's net is much lower and varies by operator and contract. Whole charter uses the middle of typical US on-demand rates by class from Blade (2026): turboprop $1,200 to $1,800 an hour, light jet $2,500 to $4,000, midsize $4,000 to $6,000, super-midsize $5,500 to $8,500, large $8,000 to $13,000. Seat price and load are your assumptions. The seat price starts 50% above a full-cabin share of the charter rate; that premium is an assumption, so move it to what your market pays. An illustration, not a forecast; the ICCJET review models the net for a specific jet and operator.
A carrier sells single seats on set routes from private terminals; you arrive about 20 minutes before departure. JSX flies 30-seat Embraer ERJ-135s and 145s to some 28 destinations, from about $129 one way. Aero flies 16-seat ERJ-135s, a Legacy 600 and a Gulfstream IV to Aspen, Los Cabos and other leisure routes.
US public charter · scheduledA charter company opens the empty seats on a whole-jet booking, or lets you start a flight and fill it. XO calls these crowdfunded flights and does not require membership. The more seats sell, the less each costs; if they don't sell, the flight may not go.
Flexible · price falls as seats fillThe jet has to fly empty to collect a client or to go home. Operators sell that leg at a discount, whole or by the seat. The cheapest way to fly private, with one catch: the time and route belong to the paying trip and can move.
Cheapest · least certainThe operator sells the whole jet to one client, who often splits it with their own group. The simplest model and the one every operator runs; the income per hour is the charter rate, whatever the number of passengers.
Simplest · steadyA privately operated jet selling seats through chat groups or apps is an illegal charter, however good the jet. The pilot and aircraft may not meet commercial standards, insurance may not cover paying passengers, and you have almost no rights if it goes wrong. Panel of lawyers and investors at Corporate Jet Investor Miami, November 2025.
Illegal charter · grey charterof private flyers are interested in by-the-seat and shared flights (Private Jet Card Comparisons, Jet Card Report 2023/24).
used a by-the-seat or shared flight in the past year, up from 5.8% the year before, in the same survey.
of the interested flyers would change their departure date to get a shared seat, and 48% would fly a turboprop.
Sources: Upgraded Points on JSX (fleet, destinations, fares), Aero fleet and routes as published, XO "Ways to fly", Private Jet Card Comparisons (Jet Card Report 2023/24 survey, 29 Oct 2023), AIN on the Corporate Jet Investor Miami 2025 panel (7 Nov 2025).
25 jets, turboprops and semi-private airliners, most seats first. Divide the hourly charter rate by the seats and you get what one seat-hour costs when the jet is full. Tell the finder how many seats you want to sell and how far; tap a jet to run its owner math.
Passengers: the maker's maximum; most executive cabins are fitted with fewer seats. Range: the maker's published range in nautical miles, typical conditions; full cabins and headwinds cut it. Hourly rates: typical US on-demand rates by class from Blade (2026), not quotes; one jet can price above or below its class. Semi-private airliners are not chartered by the hour on this page; their seats are sold one by one (JSX fares from Upgraded Points). Compiled by ICCJET, 28 October 2026.
Any business jet can carry paying passengers seat by seat, but only on an operator's air operator certificate. Here is the rule in the main markets, then the five checks an owner should run before signing with an operator.
Paying passengers fly with an FAA Part 135 (on-demand) or Part 121 carrier. Selling single seats to the public on a set itinerary needs a DOT Part 380 public charter, flown by a Part 135 operator: the model JSX, Aero and XO have used. A privately operated (Part 91) jet cannot sell seats. In 2024 the FAA said it intends to tighten the rules for public charters.
A UK air operator certificate and an operating licence from the Civil Aviation Authority. Check any operator at caa.co.uk/aocholders. Cost-sharing is only for small, non-complex aircraft with no more than six people on board, so never for a business jet.
An EASA air operator certificate and an operating licence under Regulation 1008/2008. The same six-person, non-complex-aircraft limit on cost-sharing applies, so a seat on a business jet is always a commercial flight.
A Transport Canada air operator certificate for commercial air service, plus a licence from the Canadian Transportation Agency to sell air transport to the public.
A CASA air operator certificate for air transport under the Part 119 and Part 135 rules that came into force in December 2021.
Not checked
The UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch found a "grey charter": a private pilot, with no commercial licence and no night rating, paid to fly a passenger at night in an aircraft not licensed for it. The CAA then prosecuted the man who arranged the flight and launched its "Legal to Fly" campaign.
Check: Air operator certificate Source ProsecutionLawyers warned that jet seats sold through WhatsApp groups and apps leave passengers with "really no rights" if something goes wrong; investors called it a demand the legal industry has failed to meet.
Check: Who sells the seat SourceCountry summaries are general information, not legal advice; rules change, and we check them for each flight. The owner check is ICCJET's own five-point checklist, 20 points each, used in our review. It is not an official rating.
A jet earns when it flies full and often. That favours light jets on short, busy routes and super-midsize jets coast to coast, with a cabin operators can sell and a type their crews already fly. Our review ranks the candidates on your routes by cost per seat-hour, demand and resale.
Charter and seats offset ownership; they rarely pay for all of it. The operator takes its share and every flight has direct costs. We show you the gross, what comes off it and what the jet will still cost you, before you sign anything, and say plainly when a jet will not earn what a seller claims.
Where you fly and where seats already sell: Las Vegas to Los Angeles, London to the Alps, New York to Florida.
Whole charter, shared seats, empty legs or a semi-private route.
The lowest cost per seat-hour on those routes, in a type operators want.
Records, inspection, market value and price, on or off market.
Negotiation and closing; then the jet goes to an operator of your choice.
We source these on and off market through more than 30,000 contacts, and review each one for charter and seat sales before we put it in front of you.
Phenom 300E, Citation CJ4 Gen2 and Pilatus PC-24: up to 9 or 10 seats, the lowest cost per seat-hour on short, busy routes.
Pilatus PC-12 NGX and King Air 360: up to 9 seats, short strips, the cheapest hour to sell.
Citation Latitude, Praetor 500 and 600, Challenger 3500, Citation Longitude and G280: coast to coast with 9 to 12 seats.
Challenger 650, Legacy 650E and Falcon 2000LXS: 10 to 13 seats for groups and longer sectors.
G650ER, G700 and Global 7500: up to 19 seats, sold as whole charters on long-haul routes.
Embraer ERJ-135 and ERJ-145: 16 to 30 seats, the aircraft semi-private carriers sell one seat at a time.
Availability changes month to month; we say plainly when the right jet is not on the market. ICCJET does not operate aircraft or sell seats; operators that hold an air operator certificate do.
Yes, through an operator. Any business jet can carry paying passengers seat by seat once it flies on the certificate of a company that holds an air operator certificate. The operator can sell it as a whole charter, open its empty seats as a shared flight, sell its empty legs, or fly it on a semi-private route sold one seat at a time, as JSX and Aero do.
Rarely in full. Charter and seat income offsets crew, hangar, insurance and maintenance, and can cut the net cost of owning a jet substantially, but after the operator's share and the direct cost of each flight most owners still pay for part of the jet. The right type, the right routes and the right operator decide how big that part is. That is what the ICCJET review works out before you buy.
Gross charter income is the hours flown for paying clients times the hourly rate. Typical US rates in 2026: light jets $2,500 to $4,000 an hour, super-midsize $5,500 to $8,500, large jets $8,000 to $13,000 (Blade). A light jet chartered 300 hours a year at the middle of its range grosses about $975,000, before the operator's share and flight costs. The calculator on this page runs it for each jet.
Only if enough seats sell at a high enough price. A seat sale beats a whole charter when the seats sold, times the price per seat, beat the charter rate for the same hours. The calculator shows how many seats per flight that takes for each jet at the seat price you set.
Industry estimates put it at about a third, with figures quoted from 30% to 40%. There is no official statistic. For an owner, those positioning legs are cost with no income unless the operator can sell them as empty legs.
Not by yourself. Seats on a privately operated jet sold through WhatsApp groups or apps are illegal charter: the passengers may have no insurance cover and almost no rights. Paying passengers must fly with an operator that holds an air operator certificate for your aircraft, in the US under FAA Part 135 and, for seats sold to the public on a set itinerary, a DOT Part 380 public charter.
No. UK and EU cost-sharing rules cover private flights in non-complex aircraft with no more than six people on board, pilot included. Jets are complex aircraft, so paying passengers need an operator with an air operator certificate and an operating licence.
The one with the lowest cost per seat-hour on routes where seats sell. Light jets such as the Phenom 300E, Citation CJ4 and PC-24 seat up to 9 or 10 for short, busy hops; super-midsize jets such as the Challenger 3500 and Praetor 600 fly coast to coast; 30-seat regional jets such as the ERJ-135 and ERJ-145 are what semi-private carriers fly. The table on this page ranks them.
Where jets already fly often. On the SkyAccess marketplace over twelve months to August 2026 the busiest empty-leg corridors were Chambéry to London (4,385 repositioning legs), London to Zurich (3,773) and London to Malaga (3,566); in the US, Las Vegas to Los Angeles (3,076), Los Angeles to San Francisco (2,532) and New York to Washington (2,526).
Yes. In the Jet Card Report 2023/24 survey, 39% of private flyers said they were interested in by-the-seat and shared flights, and 9.2% had used one in the past year, up from 5.8%. JSX alone flies 30-seat jets to some 28 destinations with fares from about $129.
WingX counted 3.9 million business jet departures worldwide in 2025, 5% more than in 2024 and the most on record. North America flew 72% of them. That is one take-off about every 8 seconds.
A professional review before you buy: which jet fits your routes and the charter or seat-sale model, its cost per seat-hour, the market for that type on and off market, the aircraft's records and condition, and the price. Then we find the jet and see the purchase through. Write to info@icc-jet.com.
Your routes, how many hours you fly yourself, budget and timing are enough to start. We answer honestly about what the jet will earn and what it will still cost you.
info@icc-jet.com