Updated July 2026
When you think of Thanksgiving and Christmas, private jets probably aren't the first thing that springs to mind. Maybe they should be.
Chartering a private jet over the holidays can reinvent the season for your family. Here's what that looks like.
What You Will Learn
- Why holiday airport crowds and oversold flights put your plans at risk, and how flying private avoids both
- Which warm-weather destinations our clients pick to escape the winter
- How chartering lets you fly on the exact date you want, including Christmas Day
- How to gather family from different cities on a single trip
- What a holiday charter actually costs, and where to get a real number
Escape Busy Airports
Holiday airports are such a mess that the crowded terminal has become a movie cliché. Shouting, sprinting for a gate, long lines full of people who fly twice a year - it's a recipe for a bad day.
The airlines don't help. They routinely oversell holiday flights.
Here's the actual reason: people book holiday travel early, then plans change, and they never show up. Airlines sell more seats than the aircraft has, betting on those no-shows. Most days, the math works out. When it doesn't, somebody standing at the gate does not get on the plane.
That somebody could be you or a family member. You may be rebooked onto a later flight or told to come back tomorrow. Through no fault of your own, your holiday plans slip.
The good news is you don't need magical reindeer to get around this.
Charter a private jet and you skip the main terminal entirely. You board through a Fixed-Base Operator (FBO), a private terminal, often right beside the major airport, minus the crowds. Security and customs take minutes rather than hours. Then you walk out to your aircraft.
All of the travel, none of the terminal.
Escape the Cold
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire is a classic holiday image. Nobody said the fire can't be on a beach.
We're used to a cold Christmas, but cold makes everything harder. Icy roads when elderly relatives are driving over. Dark by four in the afternoon. Kids coming back inside caked in mud. Even a last-minute run out for cranberry sauce turns into an expedition.
Which is why more of our clients are trying something different: a sunny Christmas.
The more you think about it, the more sense it makes. The whole family in one place, warm water, long daylight, and nobody scraping a windshield.
Popular holiday getaways among our clients:
- Gran Canaria
- The Bahamas
- Marrakech, Morocco
- Dubai
- Mexico
- Jamaica
- Barbados
- Costa Rica
Fly on the Day You Want, Including Christmas Day
With private jet charter, you set the schedule. There are no blackout dates; if you want to fly on a particular date, we'll arrange it. That's something you won't get from a fixed-rate jet card program.
Here's a detail most travelers miss: Christmas Day itself is one of the quietest days of the year to fly. The TSA lists Christmas Eve and Christmas Day among the lightest travel days of the entire holiday period. The crush lands on the days around it, the weekend before Christmas, and the stretch between Christmas and New Year's.
That works in your favor either way. If you'd rather travel on Christmas Day, the skies are clear. If you have to fly on the 27th along with everyone else, chartering keeps you out of the worst of it.
Either way, the date is your call and not the airline's.
You might even spot Santa on the way.
Bring Everyone Together
Private jets and pragmatism don't often turn up in the same sentence. But over the holidays, chartering is frequently the most practical option on the table.
Getting the whole family into one place is hard for obvious reasons. People live in different states or different countries. One of the kids is at school out of state. There's no sensible middle ground to meet.
This is exactly the problem charter solves. A private jet can make multiple stops and absorb last-minute changes, so you can collect everyone en route and arrive together.
Our team will plot the trip so it works for every passenger, which saves you from choreographing five separate commercial itineraries and hoping they all land on the same day.
What Does a Holiday Charter Cost?
Fair question, and one we'd rather answer up front than leave hanging.
Charter pricing comes down to aircraft size, distance, the number of legs you're flying, and how far ahead you book. Holiday dates are in demand, so booking earlier generally costs less. A light jet moving a family a few hundred miles is a very different number from a heavy jet crossing the Atlantic.
Rather than guess:
- Run your trip through our private jet charter cost estimator for a ballpark figure in a couple of minutes.
- Or read our breakdown of private jet charter pricing to understand what drives the number.
If you expect to fly several times across the season, a jet card membership may work out better than booking trip by trip.
Capture the Magic of the Season
The holidays hold a special place for most of us, though there's no denying they were more exciting when we were eight.
A private jet brings some of that back.
Flying private isn't just a way to get there; it's part of the trip. And it lands with every age group. Kids, partners, grandparents: nobody is immune to the charm of walking across the tarmac to their own aircraft.
The holiday starts the moment you reach the FBO, not when you check into the hotel.
If you'd like to give your family something they'll actually remember this season, call our team on +1-877-727-2538 Ext. 1, or request a quote online.
