Ask five charter operators what a trip will cost and you'll get five versions of "it depends," followed by a quote that lands hours later, priced to whatever the market will bear that week. Ask us what a dry lease costs and you get a number, in writing, on this page, before you've called anyone. That's not a marketing trick — it's the whole point of publishing rates instead of hiding behind "price on application." You can't build a ten-year lessee relationship on a number you're afraid to show someone before they've signed anything.
(New to the structure? Read Dry lease vs. charter: what's the difference? first — two minutes. Short version: in a charter, an operator flies you and holds operational control. In a dry lease, you rent the airplane, hire your own pilot, and hold operational control yourself under Part 91. Renting the car versus hiring a car service.)
Our actual rates for the Citation CJ1
Here's the number, no login wall required. Our Tamarack CJ1 dry-leases at $1,750/hr block rate — you commit to a block of hours up front and draw them down trip by trip — or $1,950/hr pay-as-you-go for lessees who aren't ready to commit to a block. Both are indicative until the aircraft and your lease are finalized. Full specs and the exact rate structure live on the Citation CJ1 page.
Those are the rates for the airplane itself — the Hobbs-metered rental of the aircraft, the way a car-rental counter quotes a daily rate for the car. They are not the total cost of a flight. Nobody's rate is; the difference is that charter operators fold everything else into one number they won't show you until you ask, and we show you each piece separately, because you're the one paying each piece directly.
Which rate fits depends on how you fly. A block of hours makes sense once you know roughly how much you'll fly this year — it's the lower per-hour number, and you draw it down trip by trip like a prepaid tab. Pay-as-you-go costs a little more per hour but asks for no up-front commitment, which is the right trade for a first year, a lighter flying season, or simply testing whether the structure suits you before you commit further. Either way, the number on this page is the number you'd hear on the phone — there's no "call for a quote" version that's different.
The full cost stack: what you actually pay, flight by flight
A dry lease has three real cost lines per trip, and you write the check (or wire) for each one yourself:
- Aircraft (dry lease): block or pay-as-you-go rate × flight hours — $1,750–1,950/hr.
- Fuel: the CJ1 burns roughly 130 gallons per flight hour; at contract pricing of about $4.50/gal, that's roughly $585/hr, billed at cost with no markup.
- Pilot: hired and paid by you, directly — typically $1,000–1,500/day, regardless of how many hours you fly that day. The CJ1 is single-pilot certified, so where your insurance allows, one qualified pilot can often cover the trip solo.
Add those three and a short round trip of about 3.5 flight hours — Fort Lauderdale Executive (FXE) to Atlanta and back, for example — runs roughly $6,125 (aircraft) + $2,050 (fuel) + $1,300 (a pilot's day) ≈ $9,500 for the airplane and the crew. We've shown the full worked comparison against charter pricing for that exact trip in the honest math; this page is about the dry-lease side alone.
Insurance is the fourth line, and it's the one number here we won't give you, because it isn't ours to quote. You carry your own policy, or lease named-insured coverage recognizing your operational control, and premiums depend on your pilot's hours, the aircraft, and your broker. Ask your broker for a real number before you assume one.
What's not in the price — and what charter hides in theirs
Aircraft, fuel, and pilot cover the flying itself. A few things sit outside all three lines, on either side of this comparison:
- Landing, ramp, and handling fees at the destination — both a dry lease and a charter pay these; nobody bundles them because they vary airport to airport.
- Away-from-home costs — hangar or tie-down if you stay overnight, catering, ground transportation. Yours to arrange either way.
- International formalities — customs and eAPIS for island trips, generally your pilot's job to handle.
Where the two structures actually diverge is what charter adds on top of its headline quote. A charter invoice routinely grows after the fact: fuel surcharges when Jet-A spikes, de-ice charges, daily minimums that bill you for hours you didn't fly, repositioning fees for the empty leg the operator flies to reach you, and the federal excise tax — charter is commercial air transportation, so it adds 7.5% on top of everything. A true dry lease is generally not subject to that excise tax, though tax treatment depends on your specifics, so confirm with your own tax advisor. None of that is a knock on charter; it's a service business pricing itself like one. It's just not your cost stack, and it's worth knowing before you compare two quotes side by side.
The annual math: 25, 50, and 100 hours
One trip's numbers are useful. The annual number is the one that actually decides whether dry leasing makes sense for you. These are illustrative estimates — built from our published rates, assuming trips average about four flight hours (a round trip like FXE to Atlanta) and pilot days billed at the midpoint of the typical range:
- 25 hours/year (roughly six flying days): about $43,750 aircraft + $14,625 fuel + $8,125 pilot ≈ $66,500, or roughly $2,660/flight hour combined for aircraft, fuel, and pilot.
- 50 hours/year (about 12 flying days): about $87,500 aircraft + $29,250 fuel + $15,625 pilot ≈ $132,400, still roughly $2,650/hr blended.
- 100 hours/year (about 25 flying days): about $175,000 aircraft + $58,500 fuel + $31,250 pilot ≈ $264,750, again close to $2,650/hr.
Notice the blended hourly cost barely moves with volume — dry leasing doesn't reward you for flying more the way owning an aircraft eventually can, and that's a different comparison entirely. What dry leasing does, at any volume, is keep every hour priced at direct cost instead of retail. Run your own routes and hours in the estimator — every assumption above, including ours, is editable.
For a business flying a predictable schedule, the flatness above is a feature, not just a footnote: a $2,650/hr planning number holds roughly steady whether this is a light year or a heavy one, with no fuel-surcharge line or seasonal rate card working against you. That's a budgeting conversation a CFO can actually plan around, which is different from a charter quote that moves every time you ask for one.
Who shouldn't dry lease
Under about 15 hours a year, we'll tell you honestly: charter is probably the better deal. Setting up a lease means paperwork, an insurance conversation, and lining up a pilot — real effort that only pays for itself once you're flying enough hours to amortize it. Two trips a year doesn't clear that bar for most people. We'd rather say that up front than sign a lessee who'd be happier calling a charter desk. If that's where you land, the honest comparison — including where charter genuinely wins — is in Dry lease vs. charter: what's the difference?
The flip side matters just as much: if you're already flying 20 or more hours a year and paying charter's retail rate for every one of them, the setup effort pays for itself fast, often inside the first two or three trips. Somewhere between "occasional flyer" and "20+ hours" is a judgment call, not a hard rule — and it's exactly the kind of call worth a phone conversation instead of a guess.
The bottom line
$1,750/hr for the airplane, about $585/hr for fuel, $1,000–1,500 a day for a pilot you hire yourself. That's the whole stack — no markup buried anywhere in it, because there's no middleman left to mark it up. Add it up for your own routes and hours, or tell us your typical trips and we'll do the math with you the same day.
All figures on this page are illustrative estimates, not quotes — based on our indicative rates and typical costs; actual costs vary with route, fuel pricing, pilot rates, and lease terms. This is general information, not legal or tax advice; tax treatment should be confirmed with your own tax advisor, and lease structures with qualified aviation counsel. Palm Aero Group is not a charter operator and holds no Part 135 certificate — here's exactly how a compliant dry lease works.