Midsize Jet Charter Cost: $4,700-$5,500 An Hour
Midsize jets charter for $4,700-$5,500 an hour and cover most domestic trips without a fuel stop. What the category buys and where super-midsize takes over.
- Typical seats
- 8
- Range
- 2,818 nm
- Typical mission
- Mid-range domestic travel, coast-adjacent
Honest all-in cost
$4,700–$5,500/flight hour
Rates as of October 2026. Cross-operator range, not one broker's quote.
- Flight time (2 hrs billed)
- $9,400–$11,000
- Federal Excise Tax (7.5%, 26 U.S.C. §4261)
- $705–$825
- Repositioning, overnight crew, landing/handling fees
- Varies by base and route, not in this sample
- Sample 2-hour flight, all-in
- $10,105–$11,825
Real quotes add repositioning legs, daily minimums, overnight crew fees, fuel surcharges, and international handling where they apply. Operators that quote a bare hourly rate without these are underselling the true cost. Use the full estimator to model your actual trip.
The Hawker 800XP, and its 850XP successor, define the midsize category. Paramount’s own aircraft page prices the 800XP around $5,000 an hour, near the middle of the $4,700-$5,500 category range. What you’re paying for over a light jet is cabin space: a stand-up cabin most passengers can walk without ducking, and 8 seats in a typical layout against 6 in a Citation CJ3+.
Range runs from about 1,860 to 2,820 nautical miles across the category on Paramount’s capacity table, and the 800XP itself is listed at 2,540. That’s enough for New York to Denver (1,413 nautical miles), Miami to most of the Midwest, or similar domestic legs without refueling, and the longer-legged models reach transcontinental distances on paper: New York to Los Angeles is 2,151. Paramount still sells super-midsize, not midsize, as the class for nonstop coast-to-coast, and that’s what pushes buyers up a category.
Where “midsize” gets fuzzy
Cessna calls the Citation Latitude “the best-selling midsize business jet in the world,” and it’s a fair description on paper: a 6-foot stand-up cabin, 9 seats, 2,700 nautical miles of range. But Paramount prices it at $6,500 an hour and files it under super-midsize, well above this category’s $5,500 ceiling. The Citation Sovereign tells a similar story: often called midsize, it’s priced at $6,200 an hour, also listed as super-midsize, with 2,900 nautical miles of range, more than either the Hawker 800XP or the Latitude.
| Aircraft | Paramount’s category | Charter rate | Range | Seats (typical-max) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Citation Excel | Midsize | $4,700 | 2,100 nm | 8-9 |
| Hawker 800XP | Midsize | $5,000 | 2,540 nm | 8-9 |
| Citation Sovereign | Super midsize | $6,200 | 2,900 nm | 8-9 |
| Citation Latitude | Super midsize | $6,500 | 2,700 nm | 8-9 |
The lesson: “midsize” is a marketing label, not a price guarantee. Two aircraft both fairly called midsize can be separated by $1,800 an hour. If a broker quotes a Latitude or Sovereign for a trip you assumed would run Hawker-level money, that’s not a bait-and-switch, it’s a genuinely newer, larger-cabin aircraft with the rate to match. Ask for the specific tail number’s rate and range rather than shopping by category name alone.
The gap between midsize and super-midsize
The jump from midsize to super-midsize ($6,200-$7,500 an hour) buys roughly 850-1,200 additional nautical miles of range, pushing total range to 2,700-4,018 nautical miles, with about the same 7-9 typical seats and up to 10 in the largest cabins. If your typical mission is genuinely nonstop coast-to-coast, or you regularly fly with 9-10 people, that premium usually pays for itself in avoided fuel stops. If your routes stay under 2,000 miles and your parties run 6-8 people, midsize covers it without the extra cost.
What the honest number includes
Add 7.5% federal excise tax on top of the quoted hourly rate. A 2-hour daily minimum is standard across most operators in this category, which puts the flight-time floor at roughly $10,000 before tax on a Hawker 800XP-class aircraft at $5,000 an hour, even for a hop that only takes 45 minutes in the air. Repositioning costs apply when the operator’s nearest aircraft isn’t based near your departure point, worth asking about directly since midsize jets are less commonly based at small regional airports than turboprops or light jets.
Worth knowing before you book: Hawker Beechcraft ended 800XP production in 2005, stopped building the 850XP in 2009, and discontinued the whole Hawker jet line after its 2013 bankruptcy. Every Hawker flying charter today is a used aircraft, some approaching or past 20 years old, still fully airworthy and well maintained under Part 135 standards, but it’s why newer types like the Sovereign and Latitude increasingly show up in “midsize” search results even at a higher rate. The Hawker’s charter availability will only get tighter as the fleet ages out.
Where it sits on the ladder: a light jet saves roughly $900 to $1,800 an hour if you can live without the stand-up cabin, and a super-midsize jet adds the 850-1,200 nautical miles that make a nonstop coast-to-coast run realistic. Run your trip through the charter cost estimator, or compare every category on the hourly rate by aircraft class page.
Priced against the real hourly range, not one operator's number.