The topic has been discussed quite a lot without being answered honestly. The question was asked again at the Corporate Jet Investor London 2026 with a panel moderated by Glenn Hogben of the Air Charter Association. Bernhard Fragner of GlobeAir, Algy Trotter of Luminair and Ian Moore of Vista tackled the economics of charter.
The panel’s short answer to the question “Can you actually make money owning an aircraft?” was a “yes” – but only under right conditions.
“If you buy one aircraft and put it into management, when you don’t want it is typically when other people don’t want it,” said Ian Moore of Vista. The company built its operating model on three pillars to solve exactly that problem: diversity of customer base, diversity of region, and diversity of revenue streams. Without all three, he argued, a single-aircraft owner will defray some costs but will never truly profit.
Trotter of Luminair reached the same conclusion albeit. The company operates on a near-pure wholesale broker model, generating 98.9% of its revenue through charter brokers. “Without them, Luminair wouldn’t exist,” he said. For Trotter, the key is squeezing utilisation through flexibility.
Fragner of GlobeAir discussed the challenges such as seasonality. He highlighted that GlobeAir flies roughly a quarter in January of what does in June – making up for around 75% of the costs fixed year round. “It comes down to very focused cash flow management,” he said.
On maintenance, the three panellists agreed that downtime, not the cost of individual parts, was the real challenge in achieving profit. They said that fleet commonality, allowing parts to be swapped across aircraft, can be a significant structural advantage that single-aircraft owners simply cannot replicate.
