At what point does owning cost less than chartering?

The rule of thumb the industry has used for decades is around 200 hours a year, but hours alone decide little. Two long international trips a month behave differently from forty short European legs. We build the comparison against your actual flying — charter, jet card and ownership side by side, with running costs and residual value included — before recommending anything.

What does a pre-buy inspection actually involve?

The aircraft goes to a maintenance facility both parties accept, usually for one to three weeks. Structure, engine borescopes, corrosion, airworthiness directives, service bulletins and the complete logbook history are examined, with your technical representative present. Findings become a list the seller rectifies or the price absorbs. Skipping or shortening it is where most expensive ownership stories begin.

Can charter income cover the running costs?

It offsets them. How much depends on the type, the base, how many days you release and how competitive that cabin class is on the charter market. What you receive is net of the operator's share and the direct cost of the flight, and the aircraft accumulates hours, cycles and interior wear while earning it. Treat it as a reduction, never as a return.

Do you manage the aircraft yourselves once it is bought?

No. Avily Lux is a broker and advisor: we own no aircraft, hold no operating certificate and employ no crew. We help select the management company and operator, compare their proposals in like-for-like terms, and stay involved as your side's advisor afterwards. The certificate, the crew and the operational responsibility sit with the operator.

Services

Aircraft ownership

Buy a jet outright or a share of one — we run the rest.

If you’re flying enough to think about owning, we guide you through the whole thing — a full aircraft or a share of one — and then take the operational weight off your hands. It starts before you buy: defining the right type for your missions, sourcing the aircraft, arranging inspection and finance, and negotiating the purchase so the numbers work for you.

Once it is yours, the aircraft goes onto an operator’s certificate — we hold no AOC and fly nothing ourselves. We stay on your side of the table: shortlisting the management company and operator, reading the management agreement before you sign it, checking the maintenance and charter reports that come back, and holding the operator to what was agreed. Placing the aircraft on that operator’s charter certificate offsets part of the running cost, and we model what it realistically returns rather than what a brochure promises.

What’s included

Aircraft selection and acquisition matched to your missions
Purchase support — inspection, finance and negotiation
Full management: crew, maintenance, insurance and compliance
Optional charter placement to offset operating costs
One point of contact for everything the aircraft needs

How it works

It starts with your flying, not with a type

The first conversation is not about aircraft. It is about the last twenty-four months of your travel: how many trips, how many people actually flew against how many seats you paid for, the longest leg you fly more than twice a year, the airports you keep using, and how the year splits between summer and winter. That log is what any type recommendation has to survive.

Most shortlists collapse once it exists. A buyer certain they need a heavy jet often turns out to fly four people on two-hour legs a dozen times a year, plus one long trip a chartered aircraft covers for a fraction of what the extra cabin would cost to own. The reverse happens too, and a light jet that cannot hold the one route that matters is the more expensive mistake. We put two or three types against your real mission profile, each with the trips it cannot do, and you choose with the exceptions in front of you.

Acquisition and the pre-buy inspection

With the type settled, the search runs on and off market — brokers, operators, management companies and owners who have not listed yet. From here the individual airframe matters more than the model: total time and cycles, damage history, whether engines and APU are enrolled on an hourly maintenance programme, how complete the records are, and where the aircraft has been based and maintained.

The pre-buy is the part worth being slow about. The aircraft goes to a facility both sides accept, your technical representative attends, and the inspection covers structure, engine borescopes, corrosion, compliance with airworthiness directives and service bulletins, and the logbooks themselves. Findings come back as a list the seller either rectifies or the price absorbs. Funds sit in escrow and the delivery conditions are agreed before any of this starts, not negotiated afterwards. We coordinate the process and read the reports with you; the inspection facility and your technical representative do the work and sign for it.

Register, operator, and who holds the certificate

Three decisions follow the purchase and they interact. The register — an EASA state, or Isle of Man, Malta, San Marino, Guernsey — each with its own oversight, cost and consequences for how and where the aircraft may be used. The operating regime: private operation, or a commercial certificate if the aircraft is also to be chartered out. And the management company itself, which employs and trains the crew, plans maintenance, arranges insurance and hangarage, and answers to the regulator.

Our role here is narrow and worth stating plainly. Avily Lux holds no AOC, employs no crew and manages no aircraft. We shortlist management companies, put their proposals side by side in comparable terms, and sit on your side of the table while they are negotiated. The certificate belongs to the operator, and an operator can be replaced without changing advisor. VAT, importation and ownership structure go to tax and legal specialists, whose opinion you want in writing.

Charter-back, and the costs owners underestimate

Placing the aircraft on an operator's certificate between your own trips offsets running costs. It does not pay for the aircraft. Charter flying adds hours, cycles and cabin wear, the aircraft is sometimes on the wrong side of Europe when you want it, and what reaches you is net of the operator's share and the direct cost of each flight. Owners who fly often and dislike surprises frequently choose to charter out very little, and that is a defensible answer.

The fixed side is what gets underestimated. Crew salaries and recurrent simulator training, hangarage, insurance, the management fee, navigation database and connectivity subscriptions, and hourly reserves for engine and airframe programmes. Then unscheduled maintenance, which by definition does not appear in the budget, and residual value — the largest single number in the whole exercise, and the one that only becomes real on the day you sell.

What this service is not

Below roughly 200 hours a year — the industry's long-standing rule of thumb — chartering or a jet card almost always costs less than owning, and no structure fixes that.
We advise and coordinate. We hold no AOC, employ no crew and operate nothing: the management company you appoint does that, and we are not it.
We are not tax, legal or finance advisers. VAT, importation and ownership structure belong to specialists, and their written opinion outranks ours.
Charter-back offsets running costs; it does not make an aircraft an investment, and a share in one is not a share in a business.

Frequently asked questions

At what point does owning cost less than chartering?: The rule of thumb the industry has used for decades is around 200 hours a year, but hours alone decide little. Two long international trips a month behave differently from forty short European legs. We build the comparison against your actual flying — charter, jet card and ownership side by side, with running costs and residual value included — before recommending anything.
What does a pre-buy inspection actually involve?: The aircraft goes to a maintenance facility both parties accept, usually for one to three weeks. Structure, engine borescopes, corrosion, airworthiness directives, service bulletins and the complete logbook history are examined, with your technical representative present. Findings become a list the seller rectifies or the price absorbs. Skipping or shortening it is where most expensive ownership stories begin.
Can charter income cover the running costs?: It offsets them. How much depends on the type, the base, how many days you release and how competitive that cabin class is on the charter market. What you receive is net of the operator's share and the direct cost of the flight, and the aircraft accumulates hours, cycles and interior wear while earning it. Treat it as a reduction, never as a return.
Do you manage the aircraft yourselves once it is bought?: No. Avily Lux is a broker and advisor: we own no aircraft, hold no operating certificate and employ no crew. We help select the management company and operator, compare their proposals in like-for-like terms, and stay involved as your side's advisor afterwards. The certificate, the crew and the operational responsibility sit with the operator.

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