Choosing between on-demand charter, a jet card and a fractional share comes down to one number before anything else: hours flown per year. Below roughly 25 hours, charter costs least. Between 25 and 100, a jet card usually wins. Above about 100 to 150, a fractional share starts to pull ahead. Those thresholds have been stable for years. What changed in 2026 is that the largest provider in the market stopped selling one of the three.
On 31 July 2026, NetJets told customers it was limiting new sales of jet cards and leases for the second time in five years, citing record retention and increased demand from fractional owners. Forbes reported that cards and leases account for roughly 15 percent of NetJets flying, down from an estimated 20 percent before the pandemic, and that the company had been selling more than $1 billion of cards a year. For anyone weighing the three models this summer, the decision is no longer purely financial. Availability is part of it.
The Three Products Are Not Three Prices
The common mistake is to compare hourly rates across the three as though they were quotes for the same thing. Each buys a different amount of certainty, and each takes a different amount of money off the table before the first flight.
| On-demand charter | Jet card | Fractional share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you buy | One trip at a time | Prepaid hours at a fixed or capped rate | A titled share of a specific aircraft |
| Committed up front | Nothing | Usually 25 hours or a set deposit | Share purchase, commonly one sixteenth for about 50 hours a year |
| Term | None | Typically 12 to 24 months to fly the hours | Commonly five years |
| Exit | Stop booking | Depends on the program's refund terms | Provider repurchases the share at market value, less a remarketing fee |
| Aircraft guaranteed | No | Yes, on defined notice | Yes, on defined notice |
| Price certainty | None | High | High |
Charter commits nothing and guarantees nothing. A fractional share guarantees a great deal and commits you for half a decade. The jet card sits between them, which is why it has been the default entry point into private aviation for two decades.
What Each Costs in 2026
Jet cards are the only one of the three with published, tracked, comparable pricing, which makes them the natural benchmark. According to Private Jet Card Comparisons, North American jet card rates averaged $11,314 per hour at the end of the second quarter of 2026, or $11,688 excluding turboprops. That was down 1.0 percent on the first quarter and up 0.4 percent year over year, leaving rates 27.7 percent above their last pre-pandemic level.
| Aircraft category | Average jet card rate, Q2 2026 | Change on Q1 |
|---|---|---|
| Turboprop | $6,271 | down 6.8% |
| Very light jet | $7,688 | down 2.1% |
| Light jet | $8,456 | down 1.2% |
| Midsize jet | $9,557 | down 0.8% |
| Super-midsize jet | $12,526 | up 0.7% |
| Large cabin jet | $15,236 | down 2.4% |
| Ultra long haul jet | $19,202 | down 0.5% |
On-demand charter prices below those figures on paper and above them in practice. AVNET's guide to what it costs to charter a private jet puts 2026 market rates at $2,500 to $5,500 an hour for a light jet, $4,000 to $8,000 for a midsize and $8,500 to $20,000 for heavy and ultra-long-range aircraft, based on rates published by brokers including Paramount Business Jets, Stratos Jet Charters and Air Charter Service. The headline rate is not the invoice. Positioning, handling fees, crew overnights, de-icing and the 7.5 percent US federal excise tax typically lift the final figure to roughly 1.4 to 1.6 times the quoted hourly cost. A jet card rate, by contrast, is usually all-in for the flight hour.
Fractional pricing has three parts rather than one: the share is bought outright, a monthly management fee covers crew, insurance, hangarage and administration whether the aircraft flies or not, and an occupied hourly rate is billed for time in the air. Broker and aggregator estimates published by FlyCraft and Jettly put a one-sixteenth light jet share at roughly $500,000 to $850,000, a midsize share between about $800,000 and $1.3 million, and large-cabin shares from $1.5 million upward. SherpaReport puts monthly management fees at about $6,000 to $10,000 for turboprops and light jets and $10,000 to $18,000 for midsize and super-midsize aircraft. The share is repurchased at the end of the term, so the capital is parked and depreciated rather than spent.
The Number That Settles the Hourly Rate Argument
Private Jet Card Comparisons has run the only comparison that matters, using one provider and one aircraft. On the Embraer Phenom 300, a NetJets 25-hour jet card priced at $8,600 per hour including federal excise tax as of January 2025. A 50-hour annual fractional share on the same aircraft worked out at $8,901 per hour once the acquisition cost, a 50 percent repurchase assumption, the monthly management fee, the occupied hourly cost and fuel were all included.
The gap is under four percent. At the entry level, on identical metal from the same operator, the hourly economics of a card and a share are effectively the same. Anyone choosing between them on advertised rate alone is comparing two numbers that cannot decide anything.
Three Ways to Fly Private
The hourly rates converge. The commitment does not. What actually separates charter, jet cards and fractional shares in 2026.
Which model wins, by annual flight hours
Hours flown per year is the single variable that decides the answer before any quote is compared. The scale below runs from 0 to 200 hours.
The same aircraft, two ways to buy it
Private Jet Card Comparisons priced a NetJets Embraer Phenom 300 as a 25-hour jet card and as a 50-hour annual fractional share. The fractional figure includes acquisition cost, a 50 percent repurchase assumption, the monthly management fee, the occupied hourly rate and fuel.
A difference of 3.5 percent. At the entry level, on identical metal from the same operator, the hourly rate decides nothing.
What the jet card fine print costs, Q2 2026
Average across North American programs, and every figure is moving the wrong way for buyers.
Sources: Private Jet Card Comparisons Q2 2026 jet card pricing and policy data, and its NetJets Phenom 300 card versus fractional comparison. Hours thresholds reflect NBAA guidance and prevailing broker practice. Figures are market averages, not quotes.
Where the Break-Even Actually Sits
What does differ is how much flying it takes to justify the structure around the rate.
Under about 25 hours a year, charter is the rational answer. There is no capital outlay, no monthly fee accruing against an aircraft sitting on the ground, and no commitment beyond the trip in front of you. The premium paid per hour buys the freedom to not fly at all next year.
Between 25 and roughly 100 hours, the jet card generally wins. It is the range where price volatility and availability risk start to cost real money, and where a fractional share's fixed monthly cost is still spread across too few hours to compete.
Above 100 hours, and more decisively above 150, the fractional share pulls ahead, because the fixed costs finally divide into enough flight time to matter and the occupied hourly rate sits below the equivalent card or charter rate. The NBAA rule of thumb has long held that ownership models need around 50 hours a year before the overhead starts to justify itself, and most advisers place the fractional sweet spot well above 100. Tax treatment can move the line further in fractional's favour for genuine business use, which is a question for an aviation tax adviser rather than a broker.
The Terms Are the Product
Price comparisons miss where these programs actually differ, which is in the fine print, and the fine print has been tightening.
Private Jet Card Comparisons found that the average jet card program designated 45.4 peak days at the end of the second quarter of 2026, up 25.2 percent in a single quarter and 99.1 percent above the 2019 level. On those days, capped rates give way to surcharges and availability guarantees weaken. Daily minimums averaged 92.9 minutes, up 10.9 percent year over year, meaning short sectors are billed at more than they fly. Non-peak callout notice averaged 65.9 hours, so the aircraft guarantee generally requires close to three days of warning.
Fractional carries its own terms. The monthly fee bills whether the aircraft flies or not, the commitment usually runs five years, and the exit depends on the provider repurchasing the share at fair market value less a remarketing fee, which makes residual value a real variable rather than a footnote. Charter has no such terms, and no such protections either: nothing caps the price on a peak weekend, and nothing guarantees an aircraft is available at all.
What 2026 Changed
The market is voting with its flight hours. ARGUS TRAQPak recorded North American business aircraft activity up 2.2 percent year over year in June 2026, but the composition was lopsided. Fractional operations rose 10.4 percent, Part 135 charter gained 2.0 percent, and Part 91 flying fell 1.1 percent. April showed the same pattern more sharply, with fractional up 13 percent against charter's 4.5 percent. WINGX figures covered in AVNET's review of business jet departures in the first half of 2026 put global activity up about 4 percent and roughly 35 percent above 2019.
None of which means the card market is contracting. NetJets withdrawing from it appears to be redirecting demand rather than destroying it. Magellan Jets reported first-half 2026 card revenue up 14 percent, renewals up 18 percent and new clients up 55 percent. Jet Linx Aviation reported card sales up 65 percent year over year, and Sentient Jet sold more than $500 million of cards in 2025. Forbes counted more than 80 card providers in North America, which is the practical answer for anyone who assumed NetJets was the only door.
How to Choose
Start with the honest hours number, using last year's flying rather than next year's plan. Under 25 hours, charter and stop reading. Between 25 and 100, shop cards on terms before rates: peak day count, daily minimum, callout notice, refundability and the escalation clause matter more than the headline hourly figure, and the spread between programs on those terms is wider than the spread on price.
Above 100 hours, model the fractional share properly, meaning the share price, the assumed repurchase value, five years of monthly fees and the occupied hourly rate together, divided by realistic annual hours. Compare that all-in figure against a card rate on the same aircraft type, as Private Jet Card Comparisons did on the Phenom 300, rather than against the occupied rate alone. The background on how shares are structured is set out in AVNET's guide to fractional aircraft ownership.
The decision is not really about cost per hour. All three converge on a similar number for similar metal. It is about what you are willing to commit before you know what next year looks like.