Pilatus PC-12

Where it came from

Pilatus announced the PC-12 at the NBAA convention in October 1989 with an unusual brief: match the cabin and the payload of a light twin turboprop using one engine instead of two, and give it a rear cargo door so it could earn its living when nobody had chartered it. The prototype flew on 31 May 1991. Swiss certification followed on 30 March 1994, the FAA approved the type on 15 July 1994, and deliveries began that September.

The aircraft grew steadily rather than dramatically. Higher weights were certified in 1996 and again in 2005; the 2008 version brought the 1,200 shp PT6A-67P and the Honeywell Primus Apex flight deck, which is what most European charter aircraft have. The NGX was announced in October 2019, and the PC-12 PRO, announced in March 2025, moved the type to a Garmin flight deck and is built for emergency autoland.

The 2,000th PC-12 was handed over on 12 May 2023, by which point the fleet had flown more than 10 million hours and made 9.3 million landings. It is still in production at Stans. For a charter client that record is the substance behind the single-engine question, and the reason the type is found on Alpine, Nordic and island ramps where nothing else in its class operates.

Who charters a PC-12

Three groups book it. Families and friends going to an Alpine or island destination with skis, boards or bikes; corporate teams heading for a regional field the jets do not serve; and clients who want six to eight seats and two hours of range without paying jet money for either. It also does the work behind the scenes — air ambulance, government and survey flying — which is why the European fleet is large and spread out.

Against the King Air 200 the case is straightforward: a wider cabin, the cargo door, and several times the usable range with a full load, for roughly €300 more per hour. What you give up is the second engine. Against the very light jets at similar money — the Citation Mustang, the Citation CJ1 — they are 100 to 170 km/h faster and fly above more weather; the PC-12 takes more people, far more luggage, and lands where they cannot.

The honest limits

The 3,340 km headline is a four-passenger figure, and Pilatus says so, which is unusually candid. With six aboard it is about 2,900 km. The real constraint appears with full tanks: payload then falls to roughly 493 kg, about five adults with light bags. A genuinely full eight-seat cabin therefore means carrying less fuel — plan 2,200 to 2,500 km and the arithmetic works.

The rest is the price of a propeller. About 530 km/h against 700 to 800 for a jet costs thirty to forty minutes on a 1,000 km leg. The ceiling is 30,000 ft, so more weather is flown through rather than over, and the cabin sits at 10,000 ft up there against the 8,000 ft a jet holds at 41,000 — noticeable at the end of a long day, irrelevant on a one-hour hop. The cabin is 1.45 m high: nobody stands up.

The cabin and the cargo door

The cabin is 5.16 m long excluding the cockpit, 1.52 m wide and 1.45 m high, on a flat floor 1.30 m across. That flat floor is what makes it feel bigger than a light jet with the same numbers — no dropped aisle to straddle, no tapering sidewall at your shoulder. Charter fits run from a six-seat executive club to eight seats.

Baggage is 0.97 m³ in an aft compartment inside the pressurised cabin, so it is reachable in flight, and it loads through the cargo door rather than a hatch: 1.35 m by 1.32 m, roughly the size of a domestic doorway. Five full-size cases and three carry-ons is a routine load. The newest aircraft have an enclosed lavatory with a door in the forward cabin; older airframes may have a curtained aft unit instead, so we confirm it on the specific tail before quoting.

The corridors it actually flies

Realistic block times with the cabin full and no fuel stop: Geneva to Nice about 1h, Paris to Nice about 1h 35m, London to Geneva about 1h 45m, Geneva to Ibiza about 1h 50m, London to Nice about 2h 20m. Add to those the destinations that do not appear on a jet's map at all — short Alpine strips, Nordic and Mediterranean island fields, farm and estate runways — because 758 m to take off, 661 m to land and certified unpaved operation open them.

What it does not do is cross a continent. London to Dubai, or anything transatlantic, is a heavy jet's job. Past roughly 1,500 km a jet arrives so much earlier that the difference in hourly rate starts to argue for itself, and that is the line where we normally stop recommending this aircraft.

What moves the price

Charter starts from around €2,300 per flight hour. Positioning is usually the biggest single variable, and the PC-12 is better placed than most: the European fleet is large and based at regional airfields rather than concentrated at the main business-aviation airports, so the empty leg to collect you is often short or already priced into an operator's day.

Weight helps too. Landing and handling fees across Europe scale with maximum take-off weight, and at 4,740 kg this aircraft is charged well below any jet carrying the same eight people — at Nice or Geneva in season that is a real line on the invoice. Then the usual levers: crew duty, because a six-hour sector capability can outlast a legal crew day once you add the return; season, with the Alpine peaks and the summer Riviera tightening slots and parking; and the airfield itself, which for this type is often the cheap one rather than the expensive one.