Heavy Jet Charter Cost: $7,200-$14,000 An Hour

Heavy jets are where private aviation stops being about avoiding a commercial connection and starts being about crossing an ocean without one. The Bombardier Global 6000, priced at $11,000 an hour on Paramount’s charter page, typically seats 16 passengers with two pilots and carries 6,000 nautical miles of range, enough to clear a New York-to-London or similar transatlantic route nonstop with real reserves.

The category’s $7,200-$14,000 hourly spread is genuinely wide because “heavy” covers a lot of ground: smaller heavy jets near the category floor, priced closer to $7,500 an hour, overlap in capability with a well-equipped super-midsize, while the largest aircraft in the category shade into what most brokers separately call “ultra-long-range.” A Global 6000 at $11,000 an hour and a smaller heavy jet at that $7,500 floor are both fairly called “heavy,” but they aren’t close in cabin size or range.

Three aircraft show how wide that spread really is. Dassault’s Falcon 900LX, a three-engine design that trades a slightly slower cruise for genuine short-runway capability, prices at $7,700 an hour near the category floor, with 4,500-4,750 nautical miles of range and up to 14 seats. Gulfstream’s G450 sits in the middle at $8,500 an hour, 4,350 nautical miles, and a cabin that runs 45.1 feet long with 6.2 feet of headroom, enough for genuine stand-up movement the length of the aircraft. At the top, the G550 prices at $10,900 an hour for 6,750 nautical miles of range, enough to clear Tokyo to Paris nonstop, a mission that pushes past what most aircraft called “heavy” can do and blurs directly into ultra-long-range territory even though Paramount still prices it inside the heavy band rather than the $16,000+ ultra-long-range floor.

Aircraft	Hourly rate	Range	Max seats
Falcon 900LX	$7,700	4,500-4,750 nm	14
Bombardier Global 6000	$11,000	6,000 nm	16
Gulfstream G450	$8,500	4,350 nm	16
Gulfstream G550	$10,900	6,750 nm	19

The G550’s range-to-rate ratio is the standout: it out-ranges the Global 6000 by 750 nautical miles for $100 less an hour. That’s a genuine anomaly in an otherwise orderly category, and it’s the reason experienced charter brokers will sometimes push a client toward a G550 quote over a Global 6000 even when both show up under the same “heavy jet” search filter.

What actually differs at this altitude

Cabin standing height, a real galley with hot catering capability, a separate crew rest area on the longest-range models, and lavatories that don’t require folding into a closet, all become standard at this size. This is also the category where international handling fees, customs, and permit costs start meaningfully affecting the all-in number, since heavy jets are the ones actually flying international legs.

The full cost picture

Beyond the 7.5% federal excise tax, expect international handling and permit fees on any transoceanic route, along with overnight crew costs on multi-day trips (heavy jets routinely fly missions that keep a crew away from base for several days). Fuel surcharges also matter more here: a heavy jet burns meaningfully more per hour than a midsize, so a spike in jet fuel prices shows up faster and larger in a heavy-jet quote than in a lighter category.

A same-day New York-to-London-and-back turn is the case where crew rules bite hardest. The flight itself is roughly 6.5-7 hours eastbound and closer to 7.5-8 hours on the return against headwinds, both individually inside the 10-hour flight-time cap an unaugmented two-pilot crew is allowed under 14 CFR 135.267, but combined with ground time in London, the full duty period usually forces either an overnight in London or a second crew waiting at the destination. Ask any operator quoting a same-day heavy-jet transatlantic turn how they’re covering crew legality; a quote that doesn’t address it is a quote that hasn’t been fully priced yet.

Where it sits on the ladder: a super-midsize jet overlaps the bottom of this band for less money on a domestic leg, and an ultra-long-range jet is the step up when 6,000 nautical miles stops being enough. Price your own routing with the charter cost estimator, or compare every category on the hourly rate by aircraft class page.