Airbus private jet charter

An Airbus Corporate Jet is not a business jet. It is an airliner with the seat rows removed and rooms built in their place, and once you understand that, everything else about chartering one follows. You stop counting seats and start counting square metres. You stop comparing it with a Gulfstream and start comparing it with a small apartment.

Airbus launched the idea at the 1997 Paris Air Show with the A319 Corporate Jetliner, a direct answer to Boeing's BBJ. Launch customer Mohammed Abdulmohsin Al-Kharafi and Sons of Kuwait, ordered a 30-passenger cabin, and Jet Aviation in Switzerland completed the aircraft for delivery in November 1999. Roughly 220 corporate Airbuses have been ordered since, more than half of them from the A320 family.

Charter rates start around £11,000 per flight hour and rise steeply from there. This page sets out what is genuinely available, what it costs, and which widely repeated claims about the range are wrong.

For a quote, contact us via WhatsApp on +44 204 577-31-19 or by email at [email protected]

Measured in square metres, not seats

Every other page on this site quotes passenger numbers because that is how business jets are sold. Airbus quotes floor area, because on an ACJ the number of people is rarely the constraint. This comparison is the most useful single thing to understand about this category.

Airbus states that the ACJ TwoTwenty offers roughly three times the cabin space of a large business jet. That is not marketing licence: 73 square metres against 30 is close enough to three times, and the difference is spent on separate rooms rather than a longer aisle.

Cabin cross-section is the second number that matters. An ACJ TwoTwenty cabin is 3.3 m wide and 2.1 m high, so an adult of any height stands upright anywhere in it. A Global 7500 is 2.49 m wide. That extra 80 centimetres of width is what allows a genuine corridor with rooms off it rather than a single tube with seats down both sides.

What Airbus Corporate Jets actually builds today

Directory listings for this brand are unusually unreliable, so it is worth being precise about what can currently be ordered new and what only exists in the second-hand fleet.

• In production now: ACJ319neo, ACJ320neo and ACJ TwoTwenty among the narrowbodies. Widebody ACJ330neo and ACJ350 are offered and built to order;
• Out of production, available second-hand and for charter: ACJ318 Elite, ACJ319, ACJ320, ACJ321 and the earlier ACJ330;
• Out of production entirely: the ACJ340, since the A340 airliner line closed in 2011;
• Never built: the ACJ380.

Delivery numbers give a sense of the fleet's actual shape. Across the whole programme the ACJ319 dominates with around 69 delivered, followed by the ACJ320 at 23, the ACJ318 at 20, then a long tail: ACJ340 at 8, ACJ330 at 7, ACJ350 at 4, ACJ321 at 3. Around 213 corporate Airbuses were in operation as of the most recent published count.

That is the entire worldwide fleet, and a substantial share of it belongs to governments and heads of state rather than charter operators. Which is why the availability section further down matters more on this page than on any other.

ACJ TwoTwenty: six rooms and a shower

Announced in October 2020 and derived from the A220-100 airliner, the TwoTwenty first flew from Mirabel in Canada on 14 December 2021 and entered service in 2023. Airbus markets it as the Xtra Large Bizjet, which for once is a defensible description.

Cabin space runs to 73 square metres divided into six zones of roughly 12 square metres each, and a typical completion includes a full kitchen, a private bedroom, a shower and separate lounge and dining areas. Range is 5,650 nautical miles, which is over twelve hours in the air and covers Los Angeles to Geneva or Dubai to Tokyo without stopping. Standard VIP capacity is 18 passengers.

Completion is handled exclusively by Comlux at its Indianapolis facility. Four aircraft had been delivered by early 2026, which tells you both that the programme is real and that charter availability is measured in single figures rather than dozens.

The neo family: ACJ319neo and ACJ320neo

Both are corporate versions of the A320neo airliners, with CFM LEAP engines and sharklets. It first flew on 25 April 2019, was certified by EASA on 9 July that year, and went to German operator K5 Aviation fitted with five auxiliary fuel tanks.

319neo. Range of 6,750 nautical miles, close to fifteen hours in the air, in a cabin of roughly 83 square metres. VIP layouts typically carry eight passengers, which sounds absurd until you see how the space is used. Equipped list price was around 107.5 million dollars in 2023.

320neo. Range of 6,000 nautical miles in a 96 square metre cabin taking up to 25 passengers. This is the widest cabin in its class and the natural choice where a group needs both space and numbers. Equipped list price around 117 million dollars.

A detail worth knowing if you are comparing quotes: the auxiliary fuel tanks that give these aircraft their range sit in the cargo hold and are removable. An operator can strip them out and sell the aircraft as a standard airliner, which supports residual values and is one reason ACJ economics work at all.

There is also the ACJ321LR, with a range of 8,175 nautical miles, the longest of any narrowbody aircraft of any kind. Very few exist.

The flying palace that never flew, and other corrections

Three claims circulate persistently about Airbus corporate aircraft and all three are wrong. They appear on charter sites, in directories and in the previous version of this page.

The A380 palace with the mosque. In 2007 Prince Alwaleed bin Talal's Kingdom Holding ordered an A380 for VIP conversion, and renderings circulated showing a garage, a spa, a banquet hall and prayer rugs with GPS sensors that rotated towards Mecca. That order was cancelled. No VIP A380 was ever completed, the ACJ380 programme was shelved, and A380 production ended entirely with the final delivery to Emirates in December 2021. There is no flying palace and you cannot charter one.

The A340 Prestige range. Listings still offer A340-300, A340-500 and ACJ340-600 corporate variants. A340 production ended in 2011. Eight were ever delivered. A handful remain in government service; none is a realistic charter proposition.

The ACJ350-800. A350-800 was cancelled in 2014 and never built, so no corporate version exists. It is based on the A350-900 and A350-1000 airframes only.

One further correction on aircraft that do exist: the 320 is frequently quoted with a range of 7,600 kilometres. With auxiliary tanks fitted it covers around 11,100 kilometres, which is 6,000 nautical miles. That lower figure describes an airliner without ACTs.

Widebodies, and what they cost to fill

Above the narrowbodies sit two aircraft that move the conversation from private aviation into a different category altogether.

330neo. A corporate A330neo with Rolls-Royce Trent 7000 engines, roughly 25 per cent more fuel efficient than the original A330. Cabin space runs to several hundred square metres and range comfortably exceeds 8,000 nautical miles. Configurations vary enormously because each is built to individual order.

350. The largest in the range, capable of around 22 hours non-stop, which puts any two points on earth within a single flight. Four have been delivered.

These are ordered by states and sovereign wealth rather than by companies, and the charter market for them is correspondingly thin. When one is available it is usually through a government-linked operator on a specific rotation, and pricing is negotiated rather than listed.

Rates and the reality of availability

Indicative hourly rates in GBP for UK departures. Treat these as starting points; VIP airliner pricing varies more than any other category because every aircraft is a one-off completion.

Three points about booking one:

• The worldwide fleet is around 213 aircraft. Not 213 available for charter; 213 in existence, of which a large share belong to governments, royal households and private owners who never charter them out. Genuinely available aircraft form is a small fraction of that;
• Lead time is weeks, not days. Positioning a VIP airliner is a significant undertaking and these aircraft do not sit waiting at Farnborough. UK-based Acropolis Aviation is among the operators in this segment;
• London City access is limited to the smallest members. Only the 318 Elite and A319 CJ hold steep approach certification for London City. Anything larger uses Stansted, Luton or Farnborough.

Detailed pages for the two most commonly chartered types are available: Airbus A318 Elite and Airbus A319 CJ. Repositioning opportunities occasionally appear on our empty legs page. For the wider market see the private jet price guide or browse the complete fleet. If the group is under 19 and the priority is speed rather than floor space, a Gulfstream G700 or Bombardier Global 7500 covers similar distances at roughly half the hourly rate.

When an ACJ is the right answer

• Groups of 20 to 50 travelling together on routes such as London to Dubai or New York. Above about 19 passengers no purpose-built business jet can carry the group in one aircraft. This is the primary reason clients charter an ACJ;
• Sectors where the aircraft is the accommodation. On a fifteen-hour rotation with a bedroom, a shower and separate working and dining rooms, the aircraft replaces a hotel night rather than merely getting you somewhere;
• Delegations requiring separate zones. Principals, staff and security in physically separate rooms rather than at opposite ends of one cabin;
• Not the right answer for groups under 15 on sectors under six hours. The economics are brutal and a large-cabin business jet does the job for a fraction of the cost.

Frequently asked questions

What is an Airbus Corporate Jet?
An Airbus airliner completed with a VIP interior instead of airline seating. Airbus builds the airframe, a specialist completion centre such as Comlux, Jet Aviation, Sabena technics or HAECO fits the cabin, and the result is designated ACJ. It began with the A319 Corporate Jetliner launched at the 1997 Paris Air Show as a response to the Boeing Business Jet.

Which Airbus corporate jets are still in production?
Among narrowbodies, the 319neo, 320neo and TwoTwenty. The widebody 330neo and 350 are built to order. The 318, 319, 320 and 321 are out of production but available second-hand and through charter operators. The ACJ340 ended when A340 production stopped in 2011, and the 380 was never built.

How much does it cost to charter an Airbus ACJ?
From approximately £11,000 per flight hour for an ACJ TwoTwenty, £15,000 for an A319 CJ and £18,000 for an ACJ320neo. Widebodies start around £28,000 per hour and the largest are priced on application. Every aircraft is completed to individual order, so rates vary more within a type than they do in any other category.

Is there a private Airbus A380 with a mosque?
No. Kingdom Holding ordered an A380 for VIP conversion in 2007 and renderings of a garage, spa and rotating prayer rugs were widely published, but the order was cancelled and no VIP A380 was ever completed. The ACJ380 programme was shelved and A380 production ended altogether with the final airliner delivered to Emirates in December 2021.

How big is the ACJ TwoTwenty cabin?
73 square metres divided into six zones of roughly 12 square metres each, 3.3 metres wide and 2.1 metres high. Airbus describes it as around three times the cabin space of a large business jet, and the comparison holds: a Gulfstream G700 or Global 7500 offers around 30 square metres. Typical completions include a bedroom, a shower and a full kitchen.

Can an Airbus corporate jet land at London City Airport?
Only the smallest. Only the 318 Elite and the A319 CJ hold steep approach certification for the 5.5 degree London City procedure. Larger aircraft operate from Stansted, Luton, Farnborough or Heathrow depending on slots and handling.

How many Airbus corporate jets exist?
Around 213 were in operation at the most recent published count, from roughly 222 ordered. The 319 accounts for the largest share at about 69 aircraft, followed by the 320 at 23 and the 318 at 20. A significant proportion are government and head-of-state aircraft that never enter the charter market.

Page last updated: July 2026. Airbus Corporate Jets are VIP-completed airliners rather than purpose-built business jets. Availability is limited and confirmed at the time of enquiry. Rates are indicative and vary by individual aircraft completion.

Airbus aircraft available for charter: