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.