What Is a Charter Flight?

A charter flight is a flight where the whole aircraft is hired for one journey, rather than sold seat by seat against a published timetable. Whoever charters it sets the route and the departure time, and picks the airports at either end within what the aircraft and the crew can legally do. The aircraft, the crew and the operating licence come from a certified operator.

The phrase covers two fairly different things in ordinary use, which is why search results for it are such a mixture of holiday companies and business aviation. It can mean a package-holiday flight that a tour operator has hired and resold by the seat, and it can mean an aircraft hired outright for a single trip. This guide explains both, and goes deeper on the second, because that is the one we arrange.

We are a charter brokerage. We book aircraft through certified operators across Europe and beyond; we do not operate them ourselves, which means we can put you on the right aircraft for a trip rather than the one we happen to own.

At a glance

• What you hire: the aircraft, not a seat.
• Who sets the schedule: you, within crew duty limits and airport hours.
• What it costs: one price for the trip, split between the same aircraft whether one person travels or twelve.
• Who flies it: an operator holding an Air Operator Certificate, not the broker who arranged it.
• Where it lands: a far wider set of airports than any airline timetable reaches.

What a charter flight is

On a scheduled flight, an airline decides a route and a time, publishes it, and sells the seats. Anyone can buy one. The aircraft goes whether it is full or nearly empty, and your journey has to fit the timetable that already existed.

A charter flight inverts that. The trip is defined first, by the person paying for it, and the aircraft is assigned to it afterwards. Nothing is published and no seats are sold to anyone else. You are buying the use of an aircraft and its crew for a defined journey, in the same way you would hire a van or a meeting room rather than buy a ticket to sit in one.

That single difference produces most of the others. Because no timetable exists, the departure time is yours to set. Because no seats are sold separately, the passenger list is entirely yours. Because the aircraft is not committed to a network of connecting flights, it can use airports that no airline serves.

The two things people mean by “charter flight”

Both meanings are correct, and they explain why the phrase turns up in such different contexts.

Holiday or seat charter. A tour operator hires an entire aircraft, often for a season, and sells the seats as part of package holidays. To the passenger this looks almost exactly like a scheduled flight: a fixed date, a fixed time, a boarding pass, a seat number. The charter arrangement is between the tour operator and the airline, not between the airline and you. This is what most people in the UK mean when they talk about a charter airline.

Whole-aircraft charter. One customer hires the aircraft for one journey and nobody else is aboard. This is the sense used throughout business and private aviation, and it covers everything from a four-seat turboprop to a converted airliner. It is also the sense used for cargo charter, where the payload rather than the passenger list defines the trip, and for air ambulance flights, where the cabin is configured around a patient and a medical team.

The rest of this guide uses the second meaning.

Charter flight vs scheduled commercial flight

The practical differences matter more than the definitions.

The time saving is the part people underestimate. Most of what makes an airline journey long happens on the ground rather than in the air, and a charter removes a good deal of it: you arrive shortly before departure, walk through a private terminal, and board directly. On short European sectors that ground time can rival the flight itself. We look at where the trade actually pays off in private jet vs first class.

How a charter flight is priced

A charter is quoted as one price for the whole trip, not per person. The number is built from the aircraft’s hourly rate over the sectors flown, plus the cost of getting it to you and away again, plus the charges the trip actually incurs: landing and handling at both ends, crew duty, and any overnight the schedule forces.

Two things surprise people who are used to airline fares. The first is that an empty aircraft still costs something to move: if the nearest suitable jet is two hours away, those positioning hours are part of your price. The second is that a full cabin costs the same as an empty one, so the per-person figure falls sharply as the party grows.

Tax treatment varies by route rather than by aircraft. Intra-EU and international charter flights are generally exempt from VAT, while a purely domestic flight carries the departure country’s rate. We break the whole quote down, line by line, in the private jet charter cost guide, with hourly figures by class in cost per hour by aircraft type.

There is one reliable exception to the pricing above. When an aircraft has to fly somewhere empty to reach its next booking, that repositioning sector is often sold at a steep discount. Those are empty leg flights, and they are the closest thing charter has to a sale — with the catch that the route and the timing are the operator’s, not yours.

Who charters flights, and when it makes sense

The stereotype is a private buyer, and some of the market is exactly that. Most of it is not. The recurring cases have a shape in common: the journey is awkward on a timetable, or the group makes the arithmetic work, or the cargo is the point.

• Business travel to places airlines underserve. A day return to a regional plant that would otherwise cost two nights in a hotel and two connections.
• Groups. Once eight or ten people travel together, the whole-aircraft price stops looking unreasonable against that many business-class fares.
• Time-critical movement. Crew changes, spare parts, and anything where the cost of being late exceeds the cost of the flight.
• Medical transfer. Air ambulance flights, where the cabin is fitted around a stretcher and a medical team. We cover this under our services.
• Travel that cannot be scheduled in advance, because the meeting, the deal or the diagnosis has only just happened.

If you are weighing charter against a card programme or a share in an aircraft, the economics diverge quickly with how often you fly: charter vs jet card vs fractional ownership sets the three side by side.

What you give up

Charter is not strictly better than flying scheduled, and it is worth being plain about where it is worse.

It costs more per person on most routes, and on a busy trunk route with a cheap fare it costs a great deal more. Long sectors need an aircraft with the range to fly them, which means a larger and more expensive class. Weather and crew duty limits bite harder on a single aircraft than on an airline with a fleet to substitute from, so a delay is more likely to move your whole trip than to move you onto the next departure. And small airports have opening hours, which can quietly decide your departure time for you.

How to book a charter flight

In outline: describe the trip, get quotes for aircraft that can actually fly it, check who is operating and on what certificate, then contract and pay. A broker does the middle part, which is where most of the work sits — there is no single timetable to search, and availability changes by the hour as aircraft get booked and repositioned.

The step that deserves attention is operator vetting. The broker you speak to is not the airline; the operator holding the Air Operator Certificate is. Ask which operator will fly the aircraft, and confirm the certificate and insurance are current before you pay. We do this on every booking and will tell you who is operating your flight. The full sequence is set out in how to charter a private jet, and the terminology is in the charter glossary.

If you already know roughly what you need, the classes are compared in private jet types and sizes and the individual aircraft are in our fleet.

Frequently asked questions

What is a charter flight?

A charter flight is a flight where the entire aircraft is hired for a single journey rather than sold seat by seat on a published timetable. The customer sets the route and the departure time, and a certified operator supplies the aircraft and crew. The term also covers holiday flights that a tour operator has chartered and resold as seats.

What does it mean if a flight is chartered?

It means someone has hired the aircraft for that specific flight instead of buying tickets on an existing service. The flight exists because it was commissioned. If a tour operator chartered it, the seats may still be sold individually; if a company or an individual chartered it, only their party is aboard.

What is the difference between a charter flight and a commercial flight?

A commercial scheduled flight is published in advance and sold by the seat, so your journey fits the airline’s timetable. A charter flight is built around your journey: you choose the timing and the airports, only your party travels, and you pay one price for the aircraft rather than a fare per person. Charter also reaches far more airports, because it is not tied to an airline’s route network.

How much does a charter flight cost?

It is quoted per trip rather than per seat, and it depends on the aircraft class, the hours flown, and how far the aircraft has to travel empty to reach you. Landing, handling and crew costs are part of the figure, and VAT depends on whether the route is domestic or international. Our charter cost guide breaks a real quote down line by line.

What is a charter airline?

A charter airline flies aircraft that have been hired as a whole rather than sold seat by seat on its own timetable. In the UK the term is most often used for airlines that fly package holidays for tour operators. In business aviation the equivalent is a charter operator, which holds the Air Operator Certificate and flies the aircraft a broker has arranged for a client.

How many passengers can a charter flight carry?

Anything from four to fifty or more, because the number is set by the aircraft rather than by the service. A very light jet seats four or five; a light or midsize jet six to nine; a heavy jet ten to fourteen; a converted VIP airliner fifty or more. The classes are compared in private jet types and sizes.

Is a chartered flight the same as a private jet?

Not quite. A private jet is a type of aircraft; a charter is a way of buying a flight. Most private jet trips are chartered, but you can also charter a turboprop, a helicopter or a full airliner, and a privately owned jet flying its owner is not a charter at all.

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