You buy a “share” of a plane, with the price pro-rated from the market price of a full aircraft. As an owner, you have guaranteed access (50-400 hours annually, depending on your share size) to that plane with as little as four hours’ notice. Fractional owners pay a monthly maintenance fee and an “occupied” hourly operating fee. The latter is charged only when you or your guest is in the plane, not when the plane is flying to pick you up, or returning to base after dropping you off. In most cases, you also pay a fuel surcharge to cover fuel price fluctuations.

You have access to the full fleet of planes and may upgrade or downgrade for specific flights. At the end of your five-year term, you sell your share back to the company for fair market value, less a remarketing fee of approximately seven percent. A variety of factors may effect the fair market value calculation, and your bottom-line cost is highly dependent on the sell-back process.

• CitationShares
• Flexjet
• FlightOptions
• NetJets

These “big four” players have a national and international footprint with a broad range of available aircraft. They have been joined by a host of regional or more limited-range or limited-fleet providers, lead by AvantAir.

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