Aircraft Guides · 16 min read
Home / Aircraft Guides
By Pat Sinnott, Founder of Peak Aviation Solutions. Twenty-one years in private aviation, commercial-rated pilot, and the person who answers the phone when a client has no idea what they need.
Last updated: September 9, 2026
A client called for a one-way from Kellogg, Idaho to Bozeman. One passenger. She asked for a light jet by name.
Around here turboprop supply runs far deeper than light jet supply, the flight time on a leg that short is nearly identical, and the price gap was real money. We sourced both and put them side by side. She took the PC-12: same trip, similar clock, significantly less spent.
The category she asked for was not the category she booked, and no spec sheet would have found that answer. So here is how the types of private jets actually differ, with our own booked trips instead of estimate ranges.
Quick answer: Charter aircraft fall into five categories: turboprops, light jets, midsize jets, super-midsize jets and heavy jets. The labels describe cabin volume, nonstop range and runway performance rather than luxury. Cabin seats run from five in a small turboprop to fourteen in a heavy jet, and across 244 Peak trips the average finished price ran from $13,282 to $68,664 by category.
A private jet category is a grouping by cabin volume, nonstop range and runway performance, and the five types of private jets in charter are turboprops, light jets, midsize jets, super-midsize jets and heavy jets. Turboprops are not jets, but they sit on the same ladder because they compete for the same short trips. Every passenger number below counts cabin seats only. Neither pilot is in it.
The five types of private jets, and what each size actually does
This private jet size chart sorts the five private jet categories by the things that actually separate them.
| Category | Cabin seats, crew excluded | Typical nonstop range | What it is genuinely good at |
|---|---|---|---|
| Turboprop | 5 to 8 (King Air C90 5, 200 and B200 6 to 7, 350 7 to 8, PC-12 7 to 8) | 1,000 to 1,800 nm | Short legs, short runways, mountain airports jets cannot use |
| Light jet | 6 to 8 (CJ3 6, or 7 with a belted lavatory seat; Phenom 300 6, 7 with a lav seat, 8 with a divan) | 1,500 to 2,000 nm | Trips of about three hours and up, small parties, the lowest jet cost per trip |
| Midsize | 7 to 9 (Hawker 800XP 8, Learjet 60 7 or 8) | 2,000 to 2,900 nm | Transcontinental with a stop, a stand-up-ish cabin, the broadest availability |
| Super-midsize | 8, 9 with a divan | 3,000 to 3,400 nm | Coast to coast nonstop, a true stand-up cabin, serious baggage |
| Heavy | 12 to 14, up to 19 only in a rare high-density G650 layout | 4,200 to 7,500 nm | Oceans, large groups, a cabin you walk around and sleep in |
Ranges are published figures and they move with payload, weather and altitude. Every step up buys cabin volume and range, and costs money and availability. Availability matters more than the spec sheet suggests.
When is a turboprop the right choice over a jet?
The crossover is not a single line, it is a set of overlapping bands, and the time is per leg rather than per trip.
Under about two flight hours, a turboprop usually makes sense. From roughly two to three hours, a very light jet does. Past three hours the question stops being turboprop against jet and becomes which jet, answered by how many people are going and how far: light jet, midsize jet, super midsize jet, heavy jet or ultra long range.
The bands overlap on purpose, because trips near the edges genuinely go either way. And read the clock carefully: a round trip totalling three hours is two ninety-minute legs, which puts it in the turboprop band, not the jet band.
Which private jet category do you need for a short trip?
On a leg of an hour or two the turboprop band usually answers it, and runway access is the reason as often as money is. Mountain fields with short runways take a King Air or a PC-12 on days a jet has to divert. Where the airport is easy and the party is small, a very light jet buys back a little block time, which is worth paying for on some calendars and not on others.
Start with bags and bodies, not the spec sheet
How many people are travelling, and what are they bringing. Not what you flew last time, not what a colleague recommended. Passengers and luggage set the floor, and everything else is a filter on top.
Distance comes second, and it matters less than people expect on domestic trips. Range starts driving the decision when the trip crosses an ocean or leaves from somewhere high and hot.
Third is what the trip is for. A ninety-minute hop for one executive and a four-hour leg with eight people and a dog are different problems. Tell me those three things in a sentence and I can price three real options the same day.
Light jet vs midsize jet: why the price ladder flattens
Peak booked 244 trips between October 2023 and September 2026, averaging $33,464. Sorted by category, this is what they cost.
| Category | Booked trips | Average per trip | Average per hour flown |
|---|---|---|---|
| Turboprop | 23 | $13,282 | $5,733 |
| Light jet | 71 | $27,411 | $7,972 |
| Midsize | 77 | $32,785 | $8,461 |
| Super-midsize | 62 | $42,476 | $10,208 |
| Heavy | 11 | $68,664 | $13,691 |
Source: Peak Aviation Solutions booking records, October 2023 to September 2026. Per-hour is the whole trip divided by time in the air, not an hourly rate, so repositioning, daily minimums and federal excise tax sit inside it.
How much does each category of private jet cost per hour?
Private jet charter cost per hour is the first figure most callers ask for, and on its own it is the least useful one in the quote. The right column above divides each finished trip by hours airborne, which is why a turboprop sits at $5,733 and a heavy jet at $13,691. A published hourly rate for the same category reads lower because it stops at the engines running.
On both measures, every category costs more than the one below it. The ladder holds. Now look at the step from a light jet to a midsize. Per trip it is 19.6 percent.
Per hour it is 6.1 percent. Every other step in that table is at least three times wider on the hourly measure. The ladder does not reverse. It flattens, and it flattens at the exact rung most of my clients are choosing between.
Here is why, and it runs the opposite direction to what almost everyone assumes. Midsize gets booked in a hurry. Those 77 midsize trips came in at a mean lead time of 13.7 days, a median of 6.8, and 31 percent were booked inside two days.
The 71 light jet trips averaged 21.1 days, a median of 11.6. People plan a light jet trip. They react with a midsize.
So the category booked at shorter notice is the one costing more per hour. Short notice narrows the field to whatever is already near you, and you pay for whatever is parked there.
The heavy jets say the same thing louder, on a sample of eleven trips: a mean lead time of 2.0 days and the highest hourly figure in the book at $13,691. Eleven trips is a direction, not a finding, but it points the same way the other two do.
None of this is about the airplanes. Where a category runs deep on the day you want to fly, two operators compete for your trip and the price comes down. Where it runs thin, it holds.
One thing to understand before you compare quotes. An hourly rate buys time in the air and nothing else. A trip total is the whole job: flying the airplane to you and away again, the operator’s daily minimum, and federal excise tax. The daily minimum is the number of billable hours an operator charges for a day it holds the airplane for you, whether you fly them or not. That is why the booked numbers here sit above any published rate multiplied by hours flown.
How far in advance should you book a private jet charter?
As much notice as you can give. Short notice narrows what is available near you and raises the price in every category, and international trips need slots, permits and customs handling that cannot be compressed safely. Peak has sourced trips inside 48 hours, but that is the market cooperating, not a plan.
When to size up, and when to size down
The case for more airplane is almost never about luxury. It is about something that does not fit.
A repeat client splits the year between Charleston and Bozeman, flying a season of luggage plus a dog who needs floor space on a four-hour leg. They paid roughly $1,800 more than the comparable super-midsize option for the cabin room and a newer airframe. On that leg it was the right call, and I said so.
Another sizes up for a reason no spec sheet captures. A company took a Gulfstream to Las Vegas for a work anniversary, C-suite plus spouses and families. For ninety minutes that is more airplane than anyone needs, and I am usually the broker saying so. The trip was the occasion, not the transport.
More often my job runs the other direction. Earlier this year we found a heavy jet repositioning empty back into the US and quoted it at $22,870 for a short international leg.
Then we found a super-midsize that could fly the same trip for $17,500. With five passengers aboard the larger cabin was not earning the difference, so that is what they took. Past about seven passengers I would have gone the other way.
That $22,870 heavy jet was a must-move. A must-move is a leg an aircraft has to fly with or without a paying client aboard: home, to its next trip, or back to its owner. Operators discount them because the alternative is flying empty. A must-move widens the list of categories you can afford to look at. It does not reorder them.
You cannot schedule around must-moves. You can be told when one appears, which is what our empty leg flights list and the Peak app exist to do.
Position also decides what a bad day costs. When a March 2026 return out of Telluride hit trouble, the answer was an airplane already parked on that field, and the client flew home to Fort Worth at no additional charge.
How much luggage fits in each size of private jet?
Baggage volume climbs with the category, and it runs out before the seats do. Most light jets seat six but cannot carry six people’s luggage for a week, while a super midsize jet or a heavy jet takes the same pile without a conversation. Skis, golf clubs, a dog crate and a stroller are the items that settle it, so count those out loud before you compare categories.
Seats are rarely the binding constraint. Distance matters less than people assume on domestic trips too, and most of the continental US sits inside the range of a midsize jet with a full cabin.
What summer in the mountains does to the answer
If your trip touches Aspen, Telluride, Vail, Jackson or Bozeman, the season changes the aircraft.
High elevation plus summer heat produces high density altitude, which cuts engine performance and shortens what an aircraft can lift off a given runway. Marginal aircraft leave something behind: fuel, bags, or a passenger. Out here, July is the restrictive month, not January. Winter costs you deicing, not distance.
An aircraft that handles your trip in October may leave weight behind in July. Tell whoever is quoting you which mountain airports are involved, and in which month, before you compare numbers.
The airport question almost nobody asks
The United States has roughly 5,000 public-use airports, and only about 500 have commercial airline service (FAA). That gap is the argument for flying privately, and it is also a category constraint.
Some of those 4,500 have short runways, no instrument approach, or no fuel. A turboprop or a light jet reaches places a heavy jet cannot, so the answer is occasionally whichever type can land where you are going.
What does not change, whatever size you fly
Whatever you end up on, the vetting is identical.
Before an operator carries a Peak client it clears an Operator Vetting File. A company-level check, done once: safety rating verified, an Additional Insured Certificate of Insurance on file, the D085 operations specification listing the tails authorized under their Part 135 certificate, and a W9.
Then every flight gets a Total Flight Review within 24 hours of departure. That is Peak’s own in-house review, not a report we buy. One input to that review is a Wyvern PASS or ARGUS TripCHEQ on the crew assigned to your flight. The rest is the trip: weather at both ends and enroute, Temporary Flight Restrictions, NOTAMs, catering, ground transportation and FBO call-outs.
A twenty-five-year-old turboprop and a two-year-old heavy jet get the same review. So does the crew, on your date.
An operator’s rating covers the company, not the two people up front. Peak also does not authorize single-pilot operations on any aircraft it sources. Two pilots, always.
Guides to the aircraft we actually book
The category is the start of the conversation. The airplane is the end of it.
- Gulfstream charter: the heavy family, and why the ones you actually charter are not the newest
- Challenger 300 charter: the super-midsize, and the 300 against 350 against 3500 comparison
- Citation X charter: the fastest jet in our book
- Hawker 800XP charter: the midsize with the longest legs
- Learjet 60 charter: the midsize on most of my quotes
- Citation XLS charter: the short-field midsize
- Phenom 300 charter: four people, three hours
- Citation CJ3 charter: light jet economics on shorter legs
- Turboprop vs light jet charter: where the bands overlap
- King Air charter: where a turboprop still wins under two flight hours, and where the bands overlap into the jets
- Pilatus PC-12 charter: the single-engine question answered by a pilot
Common questions about the types of private jets
What are the five types of private jets?
Charter aircraft are grouped into turboprops, light jets, midsize jets, super-midsize jets and heavy jets. Turboprops are not jets but compete for the same short trips, so they sit on the same ladder. The categories describe cabin volume, nonstop range and runway performance rather than interior finish. Very light jets sit at the bottom of the light jet band.
How many passengers fit on a private jet, by category?
Counting cabin seats and excluding the two pilots: a turboprop seats five to eight, a light jet six to eight, a midsize jet seven to nine, a super-midsize jet eight, or nine with a divan, and a heavy jet twelve to fourteen. Nineteen appears only in a rare high-density Gulfstream G650 layout. Counts that include crew seats or commuter layouts run higher.
What is the difference between a light, midsize and heavy jet?
Cabin size, range and runway performance. A light jet typically carries six to eight passengers about 1,500 to 2,000 nautical miles. A midsize carries seven to nine roughly 2,000 to 2,900. A heavy jet carries twelve to fourteen and flies 4,200 to 7,500 nautical miles, with a cabin most adults can stand up and walk around in. Categories describe capability, not luxury.
What is the cheapest private plane to charter?
Among jets, the light jet is the cheapest category. Across the 244 trips Peak booked between October 2023 and September 2026, light jet trips averaged $27,411 and $7,972 an hour, against $32,785 and $8,461 for midsize. Those per-hour figures divide total paid by hours airborne, so repositioning, daily minimums and tax sit inside them. Below the jets, a turboprop averaged $13,282 a trip.
Is a bigger private jet always more expensive?
On average, yes. Across the 244 trips in Peak’s book the average climbs from $13,282 for a turboprop to $68,664 for a heavy jet, though the heavy figure rests on 11 trips. On any single trip, no. Lead time and what is positioned near you can close most of a category gap, which is why light jet and midsize hours sit 6.1 percent apart.
What is the smallest private jet you can charter?
The very light jet, which seats up to four passengers excluding the two pilots and sits at the bottom of the light jet band. Peak has booked one, an Embraer Phenom 100 at $13,850 in March 2026. Below the jets entirely, turboprops reach short runways and mountain airports a jet cannot use, which on some trips matters more than cabin size does.
The right answer is the one that fits the trip
Two people and a dog have taken a nine-seat jet. Five people have taken a smaller airplane than the one I could have sold them. Both were right, and neither decision came off a spec sheet.
So read the types of private jets as five sets of capabilities, not five price tiers. Tell me your bags, your bodies and where you are going, and I will price real options across categories, then say which one earns its money, including when that is the cheaper one.
Get real options instead of a rate card
Send a routing and I do not answer with an hourly rate. I check what is near your departure, pull the tail-specific details, run the Total Flight Review, and price across categories so you compare finished totals.
Pay per trip. No membership, no card, no deposit sitting with us.
Request a quote or call the charter desk at (406) 296-3256. Live empty legs and quotes are on the Peak app.
