Nine categories, turboprop to bizliner, three comparable aircraft in each, on identical assumptions. The cheapest to buy is almost never the cheapest to own, and the reason is always the same two levers.
The verdict
Across every category, sticker price barely predicts the five-year bill. Fuel burn and resale value do. The most capable aircraft in a tier is usually the most expensive to own, not the least, and the cheapest to buy is rarely the cheapest to keep. Pick the question you are actually answering first. The aircraft follows.
Five-year cost to own
Each Friday we take the next category up the ladder and lay out the real number: three comparable aircraft, every cost line, on identical assumptions (300 hours a year, a 5-year hold, Jet-A at $7 a gallon). Newest on top, and every category we have covered stays below it. Then model your own below.
| Aircraft | Depreciation | Fuel | Variable | Fixed | 5-yr to own |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Embraer Lineage 1000E Half the price, out of production · $53.0M new | $19.1M | $5.25M | $4.80M | $6.50M | $35.6M |
Boeing BBJ MAX 8 A 737 as a private home · $110M new | $34.1M | $7.35M | $5.25M | $7.00M | $53.7M |
Airbus ACJ320neo Widest cabin, tied on cost · $110M new | $34.1M | $7.14M | $5.70M | $7.00M | $53.9M |
Variable = maintenance, engine programmes and trip cost per hour. Fixed = crew, training, hangar, insurance and management per year.
Order-of-magnitude only; completion is bespoke and where the real budget lives. Crew, hangar and reserves all scale with the airframe.
How to fly it
Jet card / charter
Bespoke VVIP charter for one-offs
Fractional
Rare - a handful of programmes
Whole ownership
Whole ownership, from the outset
A private home aloft, with an entourage and staterooms. Almost always whole-owned, and the number is set by the completion, not the airframe.
The read
In the bizliner tier acquisition price overwhelms every operating difference, and the completion is where the real budget is decided. The BBJ MAX 8 and ACJ320neo are effectively tied on five-year cost, so the choice between them is cabin cross-section and brand, not money. The Lineage 1000E sits well below both because it costs roughly half to acquire, and that dominates even a weaker residual. Whatever the airframe, the bespoke interior is the number that rarely comes back at resale.
What most people forget
Engine programme & overhaul
Bizliners run commercial airline engines, the BBJ MAX's CFM LEAP and the ACJ's LEAP or geared turbofan, maintained airline-style by both flight hours and cycles under flight-hour agreements. Shop visits and life-limited-part replacement are large scheduled events, and airframe C-checks run around $800,000 roughly every eighteen months.
Insurance
Hull values of $60M to $160M put premiums from several hundred thousand to over $1M a year, with liability at the highest limits, $300M to $500M, and war-risk cover material at airliner scale.
Management & the rest
The defining forgotten cost is the completion. A bizliner is bought green, an airframe and engines only, and a completion centre outfits the cabin for $10M to $30M on a narrowbody over twelve to twenty months. That spend is largely non-recoverable at resale, the next owner discounts it or strips it out, while the airframe depreciates a few percent a year. Add airline-scale crew, hangarage, APU and heavy checks; all-in runs $4M to $6M a year at 400 hours.
Run my number
Pick an airframe, set your real usage, and edit any assumption to match a live quote. The five-year number rebuilds on every keystroke. Planning figures, not a quote.
The aircraft
Usage
Assumptions, edit to match your quote
Variable = maintenance, engine programmes, trip cost per hour. Fixed = crew, hangar, insurance, management per year (owner-flown ops cut the crew portion).
Capital
Operating · 5 yr
When each makes sense
Buying capability
If you genuinely need the cabin, the range and the hours, the most capable aircraft is the right call, with the operating cost understood in advance.
Buying cost discipline
If the mission is modest, the efficient airframe with the deep resale market protects you on both the running cost and the exit.
Buying liquidity
If you may trade within five years, resale is the lever that matters most. Pay up front for the airframe the market always wants back.
A cabinetmaker opened a workshop at Boppard on the Rhine in 1819 and spent forty years learning to bend solid beech. What came out of it went to the customer in a crate, and the avant garde of the next century had no factory of its own until it had this one.
Read the review →A drawing made for a machine to repeat, against two brothers finishing movements by hand in a Dutch market town. The interesting difference is not the watches. It is that one of these houses will tell you the number before you are in the room.
Read the review →The newest building in this issue by more than a century, standing on the shore of the Alster inside the city. It is also the house that publishes least about itself, and we have written it accordingly.
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