Bigger Jets, Longer Legs and a Rush Into Jet Cards: What One Broker's Half Year Shows

Air Charter Service booked more than $845 million of revenue in the six months to the end of July 2026, a rise of 38% on the same period a year earlier, on charter contract growth of 16%. The distance between those two numbers is the story. One of the largest charter brokers in the world moved 16% more contracts and took 38% more money for them.

Inside the private jet division the same pattern holds. Revenue rose 26%, and the company attributes the increase specifically to demand for larger aircraft and longer range flights rather than to more flying. Jet Card sales rose 85%, with card revenue up almost 60%. Group charter contracts rose 34% on 48% higher revenue, and cargo was the strongest division of the set, with charter numbers up 49% on 38% more revenue. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation rose 35% to 40%.

One point of calendar hygiene. Air Charter Service reports on a financial year beginning in February, so its first half runs 1 February to 31 July, not the calendar half. Its first quarter, reported in May, carried $380 million at 35% growth, leaving roughly $465 million in the three months to July and meaning the second quarter grew faster than the first.

The Flights Are Not What Grew

Market-wide activity data does not describe a charter boom. ARGUS TraqPak counted global business jet flight activity up 3.4% year over year in June 2026, and WingX had the year running 3.9% ahead of 2025 through 12 July. Within North America in June, ARGUS put Part 135 charter up 2.0% and Part 91 owner flying down 1.1%, with fractional operations carrying almost all of the growth at 10.4%.

Against low single digit growth in flights, a 26% increase in private jet charter revenue at a single broker has to come from something other than volume. The company's own first quarter disclosure showed what. Underlying private jet charter grew 13% in flights and 27% in revenue across those three months. The number of trips grew. The value of each trip grew roughly twice as fast.

Chairman and founder Chris Leach attributed that quarter's growth to higher value contracts on larger aircraft and longer sectors, alongside higher fuel prices, and the half year repeats the attribution. The book is not showing more people flying privately. It is showing broadly the same demand buying more aircraft per trip.

The Large Cabin Paradox

That reading runs straight into an awkward data point. ARGUS's category breakdown for North America in June shows large cabin activity down 3.3% overall, with large cabin Part 91 flying down 7.1% and large cabin Part 135 charter down 3.4%. Only fractional large cabin activity grew, and it grew hard, up 13.3%, the largest single category increase in the month.

Both readings are accurate, and the reconciliation is the useful part. Large cabin charter departures across the market are flat to falling while a large broker's large cabin revenue rises. That is share moving rather than a segment expanding: the long, complex, high value trip is concentrating into the brokers and operators equipped to source it, while routine large cabin charter sits still. The consequence at booking is not that the aircraft has disappeared. It is that who holds it matters more than it did a year ago.

Eighty Five Percent More Cards, Sixty Percent More Money

The Jet Card figures deserve reading twice. Card sales rose 85%. Card revenue rose almost 60%. The count grew faster than the money, which means the average card sold in this half was smaller than the average card sold a year earlier.

That is a widening buyer base rather than a deepening one. A prepaid card is the standard entry point for someone who flies enough to want a fixed hourly rate and guaranteed availability but not enough to justify a share or an aircraft, so new entrants at the lower end pull the average down even while the total climbs. Anyone weighing the routes should work through the comparison of fractional, jet card and charter first, because the break-even between them turns on hours flown rather than on preference.

Cards also move risk across the table. Air Charter Service reported that margins were squeezed slightly in the half as it absorbed the cost of higher fuel prices. On ad hoc charter that cost passes to the customer at the moment of booking. On a prepaid card at a fixed hourly rate it does not, at least not until the rate is reset. Card growth of 85% during a period of rising fuel prices puts a larger share of that exposure on the seller, which is a good reason to read how any card contract handles fuel surcharges and rate revisions before signing it.

What It Means at the Point of Booking

None of this changes the hourly rate for a light jet on a short sector. It changes the market around that booking. Demand is concentrating at the top of the cabin range and the long end of the sector range, where supply is tightest, and prepaid commitments are absorbing a growing share of availability once sold trip by trip.

For a large cabin transatlantic sector in a peak week, less of the fleet is genuinely open than the fleet count suggests, and the operators holding what is open increasingly have contract volume behind them. For anything smaller and shorter the picture is largely unchanged, and what an hour actually costs still comes down to aircraft category, positioning and the calendar.

The broker added three offices during the half, in Brussels, Monaco and Stuttgart, taking the group to 43 worldwide, and Leach pointed to complex work as the driver: major sporting events, humanitarian missions, government transport and emergency response. That is capacity built for difficulty rather than volume. Read alongside how flight volumes actually moved in the first half, the picture is a market growing modestly in departures and considerably faster in money.