Cost comparison method
Neither program can be costed from an hourly rate, and neither is generally the cheaper one. Both publish more than one access structure, and the total that lands in your accounts is decided by share size, the hours you actually fly against a fixed monthly charge, how your dates fall on the peak calendar, contractual escalation, and what the exit provision returns.
Both companies change their programs. Everything below is method rather than pricing, and every provision named here should be confirmed in the current documents you are actually being offered.
The mechanism
An occupied hourly rate is one term inside a contract that contains six or seven others. A program with the lower rate can produce the higher total simply because more of its cost has been moved into the fixed monthly charge, or because its billing definitions bill more of each trip.
The most common way a cost comparison goes wrong happens before any arithmetic. Each company sells several different things: a share, a lease and a card are not variants of one product, and a share in one cabin class is not comparable to a share in another. Confirm you are pricing the same structure on both sides before you compare a single figure.
The discipline is unglamorous: identify the structure each proposal actually describes, label it, and only then normalize the seven layers underneath it. Our fractional jet cost comparison framework sets out the same method across a wider set of programs.
Billing definitions
Here is the part buyers almost never price. Two programs can quote an identical hourly number and bill you differently for the same flight, because they do not agree on what an hour is. Taxi time may or may not be billable. There may be a minimum billed duration per leg or per day. Time may round to the nearest tenth or to something larger.
The consequence falls hardest on short legs. A buyer whose pattern is one-hour hops between regional fields absorbs minimums and taxi treatment on every single trip, while a buyer flying three-hour transcontinental legs barely notices them. Two clients, the same rate card, two different effective costs per hour.
So reprice one representative trip, a real one, from your own history, under each program's billing definitions before you compare any rate. If the two programs bill that trip differently, the difference recurs on every similar trip for the length of the term.
Normalization map
A method for putting two proposals on the same basis. No figures are given here because published rates, fees and provisions change; the current documents from each company control.
| Factor | What the layer covers | Why two proposals differ here | How to normalize it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acquisition or lease commitment | Capital committed to a share of a specific aircraft, or the committed value of a lease across its term. | Different aircraft, model years, cabin classes and share sizes can sit behind similar-looking headline numbers. | Compare the same share size in the same cabin category, with the model year written into the comparison. |
| Fixed monthly charges | Recurring charges owed in every month of the term, whether or not the aircraft is flown. | Programs bundle different items into the fixed charge, so comparable fees can cover materially different scope. | Divide annual fixed cost by the hours you actually flew last year, not by the contracted allocation. |
| Occupied flight charges | The per-hour charge applied to time billed against your allocation. | Programs define billable time differently, taxi treatment, daily minimums and rounding all move the effective rate. | Reprice one identical trip under each program's own billing definitions before comparing any rate. |
| Fuel and index adjustments | Contractual adjustments tied to a fuel index, plus annual escalation of the underlying charges. | Index basis, reset frequency and escalation formulas differ, and they compound across a multi-year term. | Model the full term using each contract's formula rather than accepting the first-year quote. |
| Peak-period terms | The pricing and the operating rules that apply on dates the program designates as peak. | Peak calendars, notice windows, substitution rights and surcharge mechanics are set program by program. | Count the departures in your last twenty-four months that land on each program's published peak dates. |
| Interchange and category mismatch | The mechanism that puts you on a cabin size other than the one you contracted for. | Whether interchange is available, which categories it reaches, and how it is charged all vary. | Assign every trip in the file the cabin category the mission requires and price the mismatches explicitly. |
| Exit and residual | What the interest is worth back to you, and when, under the contract's exit provision. | Valuation basis, deductions, remarketing mechanics and settlement timing are contract-specific. | Enter exit as a range with a downside case, net of every stated deduction. |
Term risk
Proposals are presented in year-one money. Contracts run for several years and typically contain mechanisms that move the charges: an index applied to fuel, an annual adjustment applied to the fixed and hourly components, or both. Two programs with the same year-one cost can diverge substantially by the end of the term if their adjustment mechanics differ.
This is a modelling problem, not a negotiating one. Take each contract's own formula, apply it across every year of the term, and compare the totals. A program that looks marginally more expensive in year one may be the lower total by year five, or the reverse, but you cannot see it from the proposal.
Fixed charges deserve the same treatment. They accrue in months you do not fly, which is why they belong in a management fee analysis rather than in an hourly rate comparison.
An independent cost model that normalizes capital, fixed charges, billing definitions, escalation, peak exposure and exit before either proposal is judged. No operator affiliation, no commissions, no referral fees.
Same inputs
A valid comparison starts from your flying, not from either company's assumptions. Build a single file of twelve to twenty-four months of real trips. Give each one a date, an airport pair, a passenger count, the cabin category the mission genuinely requires, and a flag for any international or peak-date condition.
Then price that identical file through each proposal. Without this step, a difference in assumed hours, assumed aircraft or assumed trip mix can make one program appear cheaper when it is simply solving a different problem.
The file also exposes something a proposal never will: how many of your trips do not fit the aircraft you are being sold. That count drives the interchange and supplemental-charter line, and it is frequently the largest single surprise in the first year. Where the file points below the sensible entry commitment for a share, the honest comparison is against a jet card measured against fractional ownership.
Exit
For a share, the real capital cost is the acquisition price less the net proceeds actually received at exit. Leaving that term out of the model does not make it zero; it makes the model wrong by whatever the number turns out to be.
Read the exit provision as carefully as the rate card: how value is determined, which deductions apply before settlement, who bears remarketing costs, and how long settlement takes. Enter the result as a range with a downside case rather than a single figure, because that is how it will behave. The mechanics are set out in more detail in our guide to fractional aircraft depreciation and exit value.
Tax depreciation is a separate question from economic depreciation, and it is not one this page can answer. Treatment depends on facts specific to you and to the entity holding the interest, take it to your own qualified tax advisor.
The output
A comparison is finished when it can produce all of the following on one page, for both programs, from the same inputs:
If a model cannot produce those rows, it is a quote summary rather than a comparison. And if the two programs still land close together after all of it, the deciding factors are usually service-area reach, notice windows and contract flexibility rather than money, which is a different analysis, covered in our structural comparison of NetJets and Flexjet.
Common questions
General information about cost methodology only. This page contains no NetJets or Flexjet rates, fees or figures; program structures are described as each company published them at netjets.com and flexjet.com as of July 28, 2026, and current program documents control. Programs, rates and terms change. Verify everything directly with each provider.
General information only, not legal, tax, investment or financial advice; reading it creates no advisor-client relationship. Program pricing, terms, fleets and availability change, and current operator documents and your executed agreement control; verify terms with NetJets and Flexjet. Fractional Aviation Advisors is an independent, client-side firm with no operator affiliation, commissions or referral fees. We are not an air carrier, broker-dealer, lender, law firm or tax advisor; flights are operated by certificated direct air carriers that retain operational control. We do not guarantee savings, availability, pricing, negotiation outcomes or program suitability.
Prepared by Fractional Aviation Advisors.
Last updated: July 2026.