What changed for private charter in 2026: taxes, slots, and the new math

Private charter in Europe costs more in 2026 than the same trip cost two years ago, and not because operators got greedy. Governments changed the math. This is a short, practical account of what changed, what it adds to a quote, and what a well-run booking does about it.

France now taxes every business-aviation departure

Since 1 March 2025, France levies its solidarity tax (TSBA) on passengers departing French soil by business aircraft: from €420 to €2,100 per passenger on jets depending on distance band, and €210 to €1,025 on turboprops. The tax applies per departure, so a Paris round trip pays it once and a Nice round trip pays it once, on the outbound in each case; fly out of Paris and back out of Nice a week later and both departures carry it. Corsica counts as French soil too, which surprises people reading their Corsica quote for the first time.

The market reaction was immediate. French business-aviation movements fell 21.8 percent year on year in the third quarter of 2025. Some of that traffic moved to Geneva, Brussels and Luxembourg; some of it simply stopped flying. For a family of four on a light jet from Paris, the tax line alone is often larger than the catering, handling and de-icing lines combined.

Britain keeps raising the passenger duty

The UK’s Air Passenger Duty has risen for private aircraft in successive budgets, with higher rates applying to jets above 20 tonnes carrying fewer than 19 passengers, which is most of the charter fleet. The current per-passenger rates are published on gov.uk and belong in any London quote as their own line, not folded invisibly into the hourly rate.

Slots reached the holiday islands

Slot coordination used to be a big-hub phenomenon. It now governs the summer at leisure airports: Figari in Corsica runs as a fully coordinated airport from late March to late October, with slots only between 06:45 and 22:59 and effectively no overnight parking in peak weeks. Ibiza, Mykonos and the Balearic fields run their own versions of the same squeeze. The practical consequence is that the aircraft that brings you often cannot stay, and the repositioning becomes part of the price whether the quote admits it or not.

There is an upside: forced repositioning creates empty legs, and they cluster exactly where the slot rules are tightest. The discount exists because the constraint exists.

What this means for a quote

Three lines to look for before comparing two offers. First, the passenger taxes, itemised by departure country; a quote that omits them is not cheaper, it is unfinished. Second, repositioning: on slot-coordinated islands in summer, ask where the aircraft sleeps. Third, the hourly rate matters less than it used to; the fixed costs around it moved. Our cost guide walks through the full build-up in euros, line by line.

We price these rules into the first version of every quote, because finding them in the final version is how trust ends. If you want the current numbers for a specific trip, send us the dates.