NetJets is opening a new ramp in time for the Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Georgia. It is expecting to operate as many as 775 flights for customers who will be able to fly in nonstop using private aviation instead of connecting through an airline hub.
NetJets
The stock market is down, the Iran war has pushed jet fuel prices up by 85%, the cost of future private jet flights are at their highest level since the fourth quarter of 2022, and the industry is booming.
WingX data shows global private jet flight departures for the week ending March 29, 2026, were up 11% year-over-year.
In the United States, which accounted for 57,313 of those 80,921 departures last week, flying was up 13% year over year. Fractional and charter operators saw flights increase 14% compared to Week 13 in 2025.
Over the trailing four weeks, private flights were up 6% globally compared to 2025, with the U.S. performing a point better. That’s despite a 32% decline in Middle East activity.
In its weekly analysis, WingX noted, “The divergence between commercial and business aviation since the conflict began could not be starker.”
Last week in Cleveland, Ohio, Flexjet Inc. Chairman Kenn Ricci was asked during a keynote discussion at a convention of private aviation schedulers and dispatchers, what gives you optimism?
Without hesitation, Ricci said, “The airlines,” adding, “They’ve made commercial travel worse. Covid accelerated that. People who would never fly private—what I call the frugal wealthy—tried it and didn’t go back. Our customers are younger now, and they’re using private aviation for both business and personal travel. It’s becoming a necessity, not a luxury.”
A spokesperson for Flexjet says since TSA disruptions began in mid-February, revenue hours at the company’s on-demand charter brand FXAir are up 39% year-over-year.
Sentient Jet, also a unit of Flexjet, Inc., which exclusively sells jets cards, saw call volume 19% higher over the past two weeks than typical. Last-minute “pop-up requests” were 12% higher than the norm, according to its president, Alan Walsh.
Patrick Gallagher, the president of the industry’s largest player, NetJets, echoed a similar sentiment days later, noting there are no signs of any let-up. He says the lead flow from prospects so far this year is on par with 2024 and 2025, when the unit of Berkshire Hathaway grew at a record pace. As of last month it had 845 private jets in its fleet. It expects to add 80 new jets this year.
Like Flexjet, once customers sign up, few leave. Gallagher said retention rates are at record levels.
Airline cancelations, airport woes, and lack of reliability are also driving last-minute bookings to record levels. Like those famous FedEx ads, when flyers absolutely, positively have to be there, Gallagher says they are turning to NetJets, which guarantees access with as little as six hours’ notice.
Fly Alliance President Christopher Tasca said inbound calls are surpassing Covid levels. The company offers jet card members guaranteed rates with as little as eight hours’ notice, and he says there has been a surge in last-minute bookings.
In one case, a client who was going to miss his flight called from a TSA line at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport. Tasca says they told the client to head to lunch, and that when he was done, a private jet would be ready to pick him up.
Jamie Walker, executive chairman of Jet Linx, a large operator, says in March its jet card sales beat the sales budget by over 300%. He says, “Everything above that we’d attribute to commercial airlines and TSA difficulties.”
Frustrated flyers who try private aviation quickly find that, even without airline and airport delays or cancellations, the time savings can be massive. For example, flying from Cleveland, Ohio, to Charlottesville, Virginia, takes four to six hours with a connection, not including the extra time it takes at the airport on each end. Flying privately you don’t make any stops and you are in the air for under an hour.
Gallagher says NetJets flyers, like the general market, toggle back and forth between the airlines and private flights. Time savings compared to airlines and even long drives influences about 90% of those decisions, according to Private Jet Card Comparisons’ research with flyers. No nonstop flights on the airlines is cited as a reason to fly privately by 47% of respondents.
NetJets expects to operate as many as 775 flights in and out of Augusta, Georgia, next week, as clients, including players and fans, come for the Masters golf tournament. That’s up from 430 flights in 2024 and 580 last year, when arrivals came from 36 of the 50 states.
The demand spike for private aviation comes as flyers can expect to pay more.
Fractional ownership programs such as NetJets and Flexjet adjust what’s called the fuel variable, which accounts for around a third of the typical total hourly rate, on a monthly basis. Most jet card programs have provisions to add fuel surcharges. Even if you book flights trip by trip, charter contracts allow the operator to add a fuel surcharge after you sign.
Guaranteed jet card pricing provides a window into what flight providers expect in terms of costs. To make money, jet card sellers have fulfill those flights for less than the contracted price they are charging. Programs typically guarantee rates for 12 months, although they adjust fuel surcharges in some cases on a weekly basis.
After coming off their peaks driven by the Covid demand surge in 2022, hourly prices had seemingly been ebbing and flowing. However, a look at more than 1,000 jet card program options tracked by Private Jet Card Comparisons at the end of the first quarter, showed the average hourly rate at $11,426, up 1.6% sequentially and 2.5% year-over-year. The hourly rate average across all categories of aircraft was the highest since Q4 2022, when the average hourly rate was $11,748.
To be sure, the industry has seen its ups and downs.
The 2010s are often referred to as the lost decade, following a painfully long recovery from the 2008 Great Recession. At the outset of Covid, activity fell by 90% before shooting record levels in 2021 and 2022.
However, a spokesperson for Flexjet says the company doesn’t think the current bump is temporary. He says, “What we’re seeing is not event-driven spikes. It’s a sustained shift in how this wealth cohort moves.”
