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Tuesday, December 05, 2023

Rankings of the leading fractional aircraft and charter operators, showing the largest players in each of these private aviation sectors. Both charter and fractional grew significantly in 2021, as people flocked to private aviation to avoid crowded commercial airports and flights during the pandemic.

Leading Fractional Operators

The first table shows the largest fractional aircraft companies in North America based on their flight hours in 2021. The data comes from ARGUS. Most of these fractional operators also have had jet card programs, although in the current high demand market, several of them put their card programs on hold to focus on fractional sales. In total, the fractional companies flew over 760,000 hours in 2021, an increase of more than 50% compared to 2020, and up over 20% compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019.

Operator Hours
  1. NetJets 478,444
  2. Flexjet 178,053
  3. PlaneSense 42,907
  4. Airshare 20,955
  5. AirSprint 19,032
  6. Nicholas Air 18,023
  7. West Coast Aviation Services 4,592
  8. Northern Jet Management 3,396

 

Leading Charter Operators

The table below shows the largest aircraft charter operators in 2021, ranked by hours flown, using the data supplied by ARGUS. Many of these operators offer jet cards or memberships in addition to one off charter flights. Many of the also have "wholesale" operations under which they sell time to other brokers who may use this time in their jet card programs. According to ARGUS the total number of charter hours was 1,947,472 in 2021 which was an increase of 46% or 617,743 hours compared to 2020.

Operator Name 2021 2020
  1. Wheels Up 166,805 119,478
  2. Executive Jet Management 62,681 37,348
  3. XO Jet 55,325 50,392
  4. Exclusive Jets 43,067 24,579
  5. Jet Linx Aviation 42,284 29,664
  6. Solairus Aviation 39,687 20,968
  7. Jet Edge 32,403 19,277
  8. Clay Lacy Aviation 17,940 10,761
  9. Corporate Flight Management 14,284 10,308
  10. Aero Air 13,800 10,508
  11. Red Wing Aeroplane Co 12,419 9,199
  12. Worldwide Jet Charter 11,966 9,702
  13. Thrive Aviation 11,936 7.975
  14. NXT Jet 11,737 3,093
  15. Hop A Jet 11,682 6,453
  16. Jet Aviation 11,502 7,493
  17. Talon Air 11,489 9,850
  18. Jet It 11,290 3,977
  19. Superior Transportation Associates 11,187 6,396
  20. Berry Aviation 10,982 6,047
  21. Grandview Aviation 10,593 3,914
  22. Jet Access Aviation 10,477 6,641
  23. Scott Aviation 10,082 5,998
  24. Prime Jet 9,945 6,141
  25. SC Aviation 9,615 6,208

 

Note, the tables show operator data. They do not show some of the largest jet card providers who are purely brokers and not operators, although the hours flown by the holders of the broker jet cards will be included in the operator numbers above.