Which airport should you actually fly into?

The airport decides more than the aircraft does — how close you land, how late you can leave, and sometimes whether the jet you wanted can go at all.

Most people brief a charter by city. Almost every constraint that will shape the trip, though, lives at the airport: how close you actually land to where you are going, how late you are allowed to leave, whether the aircraft you had in mind can use the runway, and whether there is anywhere to park it. Picking the field first and the aircraft second is the order that avoids surprises.

London: four airports, and they are not interchangeable

London is the clearest case because the answer genuinely depends on where in London you are going. Luton, 48 km out, and Farnborough, 55 km, are the main business-aviation bases and take anything. Biggin Hill at 23 km is the closest to the centre if you are continuing by helicopter. London City is 11 km away and the fastest route to Canary Wharf — and the most restricted airport on this page.

London City needs a 5.5-degree steep approach onto a 1,508 m runway. Three separate conditions have to hold: the aircraft type must be certified for the approach, the individual airframe must carry the modification, and the operator must hold the airport approval with trained crews. Most aircraft fail at least one. It also runs 06:30 to 22:30 on weekdays, closes early on Saturday afternoon and does not reopen until Sunday lunchtime — so a weekend return out of the City is usually a different airport on the way back.

Nice and the Côte d’Azur: closer is not always better

Nice Côte d’Azur is 6 km from the city with dedicated business-aviation terminals, runs 24 hours, and takes everything. Cannes–Mandelieu is 30 km out and closer to the Croisette, which sounds like the better answer until you learn it takes light jets only. If your group needs a super-midsize, Cannes is not an option and the choice makes itself.

Nice does carry a night restriction, but a narrower one than people assume: older turbojets not certified to ICAO Chapter 3 or 4, and Chapter 3 aircraft with a noise margin under 13 EPNdB, may not take off between 23:15 and 06:00. Modern charter types are unaffected.

Geneva: one gateway, and a curfew that catches everybody

Geneva has a single airport 4 km from the centre, and it is the main gateway for both the French and Swiss Alps. The number to know is 21:26 — that is when departures close. It is the most common planning surprise on this whole list: a dinner that runs twenty minutes long turns a same-day departure into a night stop, with the crew, the hotel and the next morning’s slot all repriced.

Geneva also has a season of its own. The World Economic Forum in the third week of January reaches well beyond the event itself: for 2026 the airport required business aviation to hold parking permission across 16 to 26 January. If you are flying to the Alps in that window, the parking slot is the booking, not the aircraft.

Paris, Zurich, Milan

Paris is served for private aviation by Le Bourget, which refuses jets over 5.7 tonnes between 22:15 and 06:00 — a restriction that rules out most of the fleet above light-jet size for late departures. Zurich closes its last slot at 21:45, near enough to Geneva’s that the same evening arithmetic applies. Milan Linate is the close-in choice and the one worth asking for by name.

Islands and the summer parking problem

On Ibiza and the other Mediterranean island fields, the binding constraint in season is not the runway and not the aircraft — it is somewhere to leave it. Ibiza wants parking confirmed roughly fifteen days ahead at the height of summer. Book late and the answer may be that you can land but not stay, which turns a weekend into a repositioning exercise and adds the cost of two ferry flights.

Dubai: no curfew, but a permit

Dubai inverts the European pattern. Neither Al Maktoum (DWC, 37 km out, the flagship business-aviation field with its own VIP terminal) nor Dubai International (DXB, 10 km from the centre) has a night curfew, so late departures and dawn arrivals are ordinary. What sets the earliest possible departure instead is the UAE landing permit, which takes two clear working days. Aircraft availability is almost never the binding constraint on a Dubai trip; paperwork is.

What the airport is like once you are there

One reason the airport choice matters more than people expect is that at a business-aviation terminal the airport almost disappears. There is no queue, no gate and no concourse. You arrive, walk through a private lounge, and the car is brought to the aircraft on the ramp — five to ten minutes from the aircraft steps to the car on arrival, and on departure twenty minutes before the slot is enough.

That is the standard at Nice, Geneva, Le Bourget, Luton, Farnborough and every other field on this page. What varies is the drive at the other end, which is why the distances above are the numbers to weigh: an airport twenty minutes further out with a free stand and no curfew often beats the close one that has neither.

How to brief us

• Say where you are going, not which airport you assume. Half the time the closest field is the wrong one, for a reason nobody outside the industry would know.
• Say what time you want to leave on the last day. That single answer decides more than the departure time does — it is what the curfews act on.
• Say whether you can move by an hour. At Geneva and Zurich an hour is the difference between flying home and staying the night.
• Tell us early if the trip is to an island in August, or to the Alps in January. Those are parking-permit trips and the lead time is real.

Our airport finder maps the business-aviation fields near any destination, and each destination page carries the terminals, drive times and restrictions for that city. If the constraint turns out to rule out the aircraft you wanted, the class guide explains what to move to.

Tell us the address you are actually heading for and the hour you want to leave on the last day. We will name the airport, and only then the aircraft.