Quick answer
The cheapest time to charter a private jet is midweek, outside school holidays and away from major events. In Europe that usually means January and February outside ski weeks, and late September to October. In the US, early November and January after the holidays. Peak windows typically add 15–30% to the benchmark for an aircraft class. Indicative only: the live figure is confirmed on enquiry.
Key takeaways
- Charter prices follow demand: the aircraft costs the same to fly, but availability changes.
- Peak windows (Christmas and New Year, Easter, August, ski half-terms, major events) typically add 15–30% to the benchmark.
- Off-peak in Europe is usually January–February outside ski weeks and late September–October.
- Within any month, midweek dates, flying against the crowd and avoiding event days all lower the quote.
- Moving dates is worth it on long, large-aircraft trips; it rarely is when the date is the point of the trip.
- Peak season is also when empty-leg supply is highest, which is a separate route to a lower price.
When is the cheapest time to charter a private jet?
The cheapest time to charter a private jet is when the fewest other people want one: midweek, outside school holidays, and away from the handful of fixtures that pull aircraft into one place at once. For most European routes that means the quiet stretch of January and February outside ski weeks, and the tail of September into October once the Mediterranean empties. For US routes it means the gaps between the holiday weekends, such as early November before Thanksgiving.
That sounds obvious, but it is worth understanding why it works, because the same logic tells you when a quiet-looking date is actually expensive. Charter is priced per aircraft, and the aircraft does not cost more to fly in August than in February. What changes is how many operators have an idle jet and crew, and how much competition there is for the ones that are free. When availability is tight, operators price to demand. When aircraft would otherwise sit on the ground, they price to keep them flying.
This guide is about on-demand charter pricing: booking a jet for your own route and date. It is a different question from when empty legs appear, which follows its own pattern and is covered in empty legs by season. The two are linked, and we come back to that at the end.
How much more does private jet charter cost in peak season?
The working figures we use across this site are set out in our private jet charter cost guide. Peak windows, such as the fortnight around Christmas and New Year, the days around Easter, August across the Mediterranean, and the run-up to major fixtures, routinely push quotes 15–30% above the benchmark band for an aircraft class. Shoulder months sit close to the benchmark. Genuinely quiet periods sit at or below it.
| Period | Typical price vs. benchmark | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Peak (Christmas and New Year, Easter, August, major events) | +15–30% | Tightest availability of the year; operators price to demand |
| Shoulder (spring, early autumn) | At benchmark | Supply and demand roughly balanced |
| Off-peak (January–February outside ski weeks, late September–October) | At or below benchmark | Operators working to keep aircraft in use |
Indicative only; the live figure is confirmed on enquiry. The jet card market gives a useful outside check on how real these peaks are. Card programmes publish "peak days" on which their normal terms change, and Private Jet Card Comparisons found that the average number of peak days settled at around 55 a year, roughly eight weeks, with surcharges on those days ranging from 5% to as much as 100% on some programmes. If the companies that sell pre-paid flying hours mark eight weeks of the year as special, an on-demand buyer should assume those weeks cost more too.
Private jet prices by month: peak and off-peak periods by region
There is no published month-by-month price index for charter, so we are not going to invent one. What we can map with confidence is when demand peaks, because the peaks are driven by holidays, seasons and fixed events that anyone can look up. Price follows demand. The table below is reasoned from those known peaks, with sources where the traffic pattern has been measured.
Reasoned from known holiday, season and event peaks, with measured traffic data cited below where available. Event dates move each year; check the specific dates before you book.
Measured, not guessed
Some of these peaks have been counted. WingX, the business-aviation data firm, has reported July as the busiest month on record for European business aviation, with London's airports carrying double the activity of any other city. Around one recent Super Bowl, WingX counted 611 business jet arrivals into the host city's airports over the Friday to Sunday, against 109 the weekend before, and departures the following Monday ran at five times the January daily average. That is what a peak looks like from the operator's side, and it is why anyone booking a private jet to the Super Bowl faces one of the most expensive weekends in the US charter calendar.
The troughs are measurable too. WingX has described a "big dip" in US activity in the first two weeks of November, followed by the Thanksgiving recovery, as reported by AIN. And ARGUS data has shown global flight activity dropping in January from the December peak, as GlobalAir reported. Quieter months are where on-demand quotes tend to soften.
Private jet off-peak: what actually makes a date cheap
"Off-peak" isn't just a month. Within any month, four things decide whether your date is a cheap one.
The day of the week
Leisure demand bunches at the ends of the week: out on Thursday and Friday, back on Sunday and Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday departures compete with less leisure traffic. That is reasoning from how weekends work rather than a published price series, but it is the same pattern our UK guide sees on corridors such as London to Ibiza, where outbound flights cluster on Friday and Saturday and returns on Sunday and Monday.
The direction of travel
Price depends heavily on where the aircraft starts. At the start of a peak, aircraft are flying towards the resort full and back empty; at the end, the reverse. If you fly against the crowd, for example out to Courchevel on the day everyone else is leaving (our private jet hire Courchevel page covers the airports), an operator may already have an aircraft positioned there or heading that way, and the repositioning cost that inflates so many quotes may be smaller. Our private jet charter cost guide explains why repositioning is often the biggest single variable in a quote.
The days either side of an event
Event peaks are narrow. Anyone flying a private jet to the Monaco Grand Prix meets the heaviest few days of the year at Nice; a week later the same route can price close to normal. Shifting by a few days either side of a fixture often saves more than dropping an aircraft class. For the event calendar in detail, see private jet prices during events.
How far ahead you book
For peak dates, book early. Aircraft availability is finite and the best-positioned jets go first. For off-peak dates, there is less to gain from booking months ahead, and a short-notice request can find an operator keen to put an idle aircraft to work. Our guide to the last-minute private jet covers how short the notice can realistically be.
Check what your route costs on your dates, then try a few days either side. The difference is often bigger than you'd expect.
Check a price →Is it worth moving your dates?
Honestly, not always. The saving from avoiding a peak is real, but it is a percentage of the trip, and for some trips the date is the point. Nobody flies to the Monaco Grand Prix the week after. If the event, the family holiday or the meeting is fixed, the right move is to book early and accept the premium, not to fly on a worse day to save 15%.
Where moving does pay off:
- Long trips in large aircraft. A 15–30% swing on a heavy-jet transatlantic charter is a five-figure sum. On a short light-jet hop it is much smaller in absolute terms.
- Holidays with flexible edges. Leaving on the Tuesday after school breaks up, instead of the Saturday, is often painless and can move the quote.
- Return legs. The outbound may need to be on a fixed date; the return often doesn't. Coming home a day after the rush is one of the easiest savings there is.
- Ski trips. Early March, after February half-term, is still ski season but with less competition for aircraft than the holiday weeks.
Where it doesn't: very short trips where the absolute saving is small, fixed events, and any trip where moving the date costs you more in hotels or lost time than you save on the aircraft.
Worked example: what the cheapest time to charter a private jet saves
A percentage only means something once it is attached to a trip. The table applies the peak premium of 15–30% to three one-way trips, using our indicative one-way whole-aircraft figures, which include positioning. Off-peak, the same trips sit at or below the benchmark.
Indicative one-way whole-aircraft figures, including positioning; APD sits on top. Distances are great-circle; times are approximate. A short-stay return on the same aircraft costs roughly the same as a one way; it roughly doubles only if the aircraft goes home between legs. The live figure is confirmed on enquiry.
The pattern is the one described above. On a short European hop, the peak premium is roughly one to four thousand pounds on the whole aircraft; split across a group of six, it may be a few hundred pounds each. On a transatlantic heavy jet, it can be the price of a second short-haul charter. That is why flexibility pays most on long trips in big aircraft, and why it rarely justifies rearranging a short break. Remember too that the premium applies to each flight: a return trip inside peak weeks pays it twice, unless the return falls after the rush. If you are splitting the bill, our guide to private jet cost per person shows how the premium divides across a group.
How to tell if your date is a peak date
You don't need insider data to spot an expensive date. Four checks, in this order, catch most of them:
- School holidays at both ends. Term dates vary across the UK, and GOV.UK sends you to your local council for the exact dates. Families flying private book around them, so the first and last weekends of a holiday are typically the tightest.
- Events at your destination. A race, a film festival, a yacht show or a summit can fill one airport for a few days. Check the destination's calendar for your dates, not just the month.
- The day of the week. Thursday to Monday carries most leisure traffic; Tuesday and Wednesday less.
- The direction of the crowd. Ask whether you are flying with the rush or against it. Out on the first Saturday of a ski week is with it; out on the last Saturday is against it.
Then price the same route on two or three dates either side. If the quotes are close, your date isn't a peak and there is nothing to gain by moving. If one date stands out, you have found the premium, and you can decide whether avoiding it is worth more than the date itself. Ask the broker directly as well: an honest one will tell you if your date sits in a busy week and what the days either side look like.
If you have to fly in peak season
Sometimes the peak is unavoidable. A few things keep the cost down:
- Book as early as you can. In peak weeks the problem is availability, not just price. The earlier you ask, the more choice of aircraft and positioning you have.
- Be open on the airport. A secondary field near your destination, or a different London airport at the start, can change which aircraft are available and what they cost.
- Size the aircraft honestly. In peak weeks, the class everyone wants sells out first. If a slightly smaller aircraft suits your group and bags, it may be both available and cheaper.
- Ask for a fully itemised quote. Peak weeks can also bring higher handling and slot costs at busy airports. Compare all-in figures, not hourly rates; our guide to private jet hidden fees shows which lines move.
How this connects to empty legs
Here's the counterintuitive part. Peak season is when charter costs most, and it is also when empty-leg supply is highest, because more aircraft flying means more aircraft repositioning afterwards. The days right after a peak weekend are consistently when the most legs list, as our seasonal empty-leg guide sets out.
So the cheapest way to travel in a busy period is often not a cheaper charter date at all, but a repositioning flight going your way. The trade-off is the usual one: you take the aircraft's route and timing, not your own. If you can bend to that, an empty leg can undercut even an off-peak charter by a wide margin. If you can't, the on-demand tactics above are the ones that matter. Our empty leg vs on-demand charter comparison helps you decide which side of that line a trip sits on.
Flying around a peak weekend? Tell us the route and we'll email you when a matching empty leg appears.
Set up a route alert →Frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest month to charter a private jet?
There is no single cheapest month everywhere, because peaks depend on the region. For European routes, January and February outside ski weeks and late September to October are usually the quietest. For US routes, early November and January after the holidays tend to be quieter.
How much more does a private jet cost in peak season?
On the figures we use across this site, peak windows typically push quotes 15–30% above the benchmark for an aircraft class. Jet card programmes add peak-day surcharges that range from 5% to as much as 100%. The live figure is confirmed on enquiry.
Which days of the week are cheapest to fly private?
Midweek, typically Tuesday and Wednesday, because leisure demand bunches at the ends of the week. The effect is strongest on holiday routes such as London to Ibiza, where flights cluster on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays.
Is it cheaper to book a private jet last minute?
Sometimes, in off-peak periods, when operators have idle aircraft to fill. In peak weeks it is usually the opposite: availability is the problem and late bookings have less choice. Book peak dates early.
When are private jets most expensive?
Around Christmas and New Year, Easter, August in the Mediterranean, ski half-terms, Thanksgiving in the US, and around major events such as the Monaco Grand Prix or the Super Bowl. Those are the dates when the most people want aircraft at once.
Are private jet prices by month published anywhere?
Not as a reliable public index for on-demand charter. Prices depend on aircraft positioning and demand on the specific date. The safest approach is to price your own route on a few different dates.
Is an empty leg cheaper than an off-peak charter?
Usually, because an empty leg typically sells at 25–75% off the equivalent charter. The catch is that you fly the aircraft's route and date, not your own. If your plans are fixed, an off-peak charter is the more reliable saving.
How much can I save by moving my dates?
On the figures we use, a peak date typically adds 15–30% to the benchmark. On a one-way London–Nice light jet that is roughly £1,350–£4,200 extra; on a one-way heavy jet from London to New York it is roughly £9,000–£28,500. Indicative only: the live figure is confirmed on enquiry.
Does flying against the crowd save money?
It can. At the end of a ski week or a summer peak, aircraft are flying out of the resort full and back in empty. Flying in when everyone else is leaving can mean an aircraft is already nearby, which can cut repositioning costs.
